The Rites of Fall
by FernWithy
Summary: Dannel Mellark sees his friend Haymitch through the aftermath of the Quarter Quell, and the surge of fury in District Twelve that follows it... but he doesn't see a big part of of his own life starting to slip away.
1. Chapter 1

**Part One: Baptism By Fire**

**Chapter One**  
The steam in the bathroom is heavily scented with sandalwood - as much as I could get into it - but it doesn't cover the stench of what I've just washed off of Haymitch. The pile of pillowcases I used for cloths will go into the incinerator, along with his clothes and most of mine. I'll have to borrow something of his to wear home, once I get a chance to finish washing up myself.

I have done the best I can cleaning him up. I was going to put him in the tub, but I was worried he'd drown if he didn't wake up, so I just cleaned him like this. I washed the foul smoke out of his hair and wiped away the unspeakable sludge on his skin, the remains of Indigo Hardy, a girl our age, who cooked on the fence like some insane human sacrifice. She was his girl. Over the last few weeks, she'd become my friend.

Now she hangs in the steamy air of the bathroom like an accusation: You weren't quick enough. You didn't try hard enough. You weren't watching.

We all knew Digger was out of her head worrying about Haymitch, and we all knew she liked to go out into the woods. We were supposed to be keeping an eye on her. We knew the Peacekeepers were keeping an eye on her. But she slipped the noose and made a run for Victors' Village, and they turned the fence on while she was climbing it.

Haymitch makes a retching sound in the back of his throat. He's still unconscious from whatever sedative the Peacekeepers finally got into him after I knocked him out, and I kneel down beside him to hold his head straight, so that if he throws up, he won't choke.

He doesn't throw up, but he does sob in his sleep.

I stay beside him, my hand on the back of his neck. A part of my mind processes the idea that this wouldn't look very good if anyone were to come around - him naked in the bathroom, me with my arm around him - but I don't care. After everything that just happened at the fence, I'm too tired to care. Haymitch never had a lot of friends, and I'm pretty much what he has left from his life before the Games. Everyone else is, in one degree or another, here because of Maysilee Donner.

There's a soft knock at the door. "Danny? Are you done? I brought clothes."

"Thanks, Ruth," I say. "Just… just leave them by the door. I'll put the cloths out."

I gather up the pillow cases and open the door, letting in a blast of air that feels very cool. I think his house may actually be climate controlled. I drop them, and pick up the clothes she's left. I dress Haymitch in pajamas, figuring he should just sleep this off. He lolls like a rag doll when I move him around, and when I hoist him up, he's more or less dead weight as I get him to bed and let Ruth take over looking after him. I go back to the bathroom. I have to get the smell off of me, too, or I'll never be able to eat again.

There are some very harsh settings on Haymitch's shower, and I choose the harshest I can find - a hot, blasting jet that might well take a layer off of my skin. I scrub my hair with a harsh shampoo, too. It probably helps, but in the end, I think the smell is buried so deep in my mind that I'll be smelling it for a long time.

Ruth has brought me some of Haymitch's clothes. They're a little small on me, but it's better than the thought of putting my own befouled clothes back on.

When I'm finished, I go to Haymitch's room, where Ruth is sitting beside him on the bed, holding a cool cloth to his face.

"It's scented with honeysuckle," she says quietly. "I hope… I hope it'll get the smell away from him for a while."

"Is it coming through the window?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

I sit down behind her and rest my chin on her shoulder, looking down at Haymitch, who is muttering incoherently in his sleep. "What are we going to do?" I ask.

There's no answer to this, nothing that _can_ be done. In less than two months, Haymitch has gone from being poor but relatively stable to having all the money anyone could want, and no one left to share it with. First his mother and brother were killed, now Digger, the girl I think he actually intended to marry. She claimed they already _were_ married, but I don't think staging a toasting actually works that way.

There's no fix for this. Nothing will make it all right again.

We take turns watching him, trading off between us, letting Kay Donner and Merle Undersee spend some time with him when they arrive. There are others in our little group, but Haymitch's caretaking squad mostly deteriorated to the four of us and Digger after the initial concern over his family's deaths. Normally, Sae from the Community Home would be here - a sort of adult adjunct to our group - but her job today is to deal with the other children, and help Digger on her way.

I am sitting with Haymitch and the sun is starting to set when I hear a low, quiet voice say, "He okay?"

I look up. It's Glen Everdeen, Digger's friend. He spent the Games hovering at the edge of our little group. I don't know him very well, but I do know he helped me carry Mrs. Abernathy to the Community Home after Haymitch was Reaped and sent off on the train. I shake my head. "He's…" I look at Haymitch and decide that I don't trust him to not be hearing me right now. I get up and signal Glen to follow me out into the hall.

"How bad is it?" he asks.

"Bad. You heard what happened to her, right?"

"I helped them take her to the Justice Building. They have to… they want to do something… with her. I didn't really follow."

"Oh. Thanks."

"She was my friend."

"Right. I'm sorry. But he's in bad shape. They're never going to let Ruth and me stay the night, and he shouldn't be alone when he wakes up. We'll be digging his grave next if he is. Will you help us get him back to town?"

"Yeah. Of course I will."

"You might want to wash up. You smell like her. Everything does."

He sniffs the air. "I don't think so. All I can smell in here is some kind of perfume thing."

"Really?"

"Yeah." He shrugs. "I think it's maybe in your head."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right. It's going to be in his, too."

There's nothing else to say to someone I barely know, and I guess he's in about the same place, because he just gives me an awkward nod and goes downstairs. I hear him strike up a quiet conversation with someone - probably Ruth; they've been trading ballads for weeks - and tune him out. I mean to pack a bag for Haymitch, but I can't figure out where there's luggage. Maybe there isn't. Maybe every time he travels, they'll give him new clothes. I finally end up grabbing another one of the multiple pillow cases in the linen cupboard - I can't imagine why they think he needs so many bedding sets - and stuff in some underwear and clothes. I tie a pair of sneakers together and throw them over my shoulder.

By the time I get downstairs, there are Peacekeepers there. Not our new Head Peacekeeper, Lucretia Beckett, but a couple of the shiny new young ones she's had brought in. They aren't much older than we are.

"Can't stay the night," one of them says, coming forward.

"I know. We're taking him into town."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because we can't stay the night, he's not staying alone."

The Peacekeeper sneers. "Well, I think - "

His partner grabs his elbow. "Beckett okayed it, Cray," she says. For some reason, she's holding a balled up shirt. "Apparently, she wants to keep a close, _personal_ eye on the situation." They smirk at each other.

I think of bringing Haymitch inside after we finally got him sedated. He wasn't wearing his shirt. I didn't think anything of it. It's summer. It was hot. But Beckett was already here when everything happened, and his shirt was down here.

I've heard rumors about her offering ways for certain boys to make a little money. My stomach turns. Haymitch doesn't need money, but the living room window looks directly out at the fence. I wonder if she offered him Digger's life. If so, she must not have liked his answer.

"We're getting him out of here," I say. "Now."

Merle Undersee, who still has the little cart from the mines, grabs the bundle of clothes and goes out to get it ready. Ruth and Kay go around locking up windows. We all ignore the Peacekeepers. I nod to Glen and we go back upstairs to get Haymitch.

He doesn't wake up, even while we wrap him up in his blanket and hoist him up with it. I don't know if it's the sedative, or if he's just decided to stay asleep. If so, it's probably a good decision.

We're careful getting him down the stairs, trying to keep him level. It's better than when I dragged him up here alone, hoisting him up each stair, holding him upright at my side. It's easier this way.

We get him outside. The evening air is a little bit cool, but it doesn't wake him up, nor does being bundled into the back of the cart, or being jostled as Merle drives him out. Kay hops up beside him in the passenger seat.

Ruth and Glen and I stand in front of the house. I know I'm exhausted, and I'm guessing Glen is as well, since he's helped carry two bodies at dead-weight today. I'm not sure what Ruth is feeling. Since Maysilee died in the arena, she's been slipping more and more frequently into some distant place where I can't reach her. She looks halfway there now.

The Peacekeepers come out. "You don't have a right to be here," the one named Cray says. "I suggest you get moving."

We don't argue. We start walking toward the gate. My arms and shoulders hurt. My feet drag. Beside me, Ruth is staring at the ground in front of her. I reach out for her hand, but she moves a few steps ahead of us.

I try to think of something to say to Glen, but I'm too tired to come up with the usual small talk I use for talking to strangers. He looks up hopefully, but frowns, apparently not coming with anything himself. After a while, he just starts humming.

By the time we get to town, Kay and Merle are trying to get Haymitch out of the cart, and not having much success. My parents can see it, but they're crowded in by the after work rush (mostly plain little breads that the miners can afford).

I half expect that Haymitch would have woken up at some point, but he's still out cold. Glen and I lift him and get him up to the porch.

"Put him in my room, Danny!" Dad calls from the counter. "He can stay as long as he wants. I'll bring him supper later."

We get him through the short hallway, and Ruth has the door open that leads to the stairs. She goes on ahead of us. Merle and Kay are behind us, ready to catch us if we fall, I guess.

"Where's your parents' room?" Glen asks.

I don't correct him. I just steer us past Mom's room and into Dad's, at the end of the hall. Ruth already has the light on and is turning down the covers.

Glen and I roll him out onto the mattress, and Ruth pulls the covers up quickly.

Haymitch doesn't stir.

"Is he okay?" Merle asks. "I mean… physically? He doesn't look too good."

"They gave him a sedative," I say. "After I punched him."

"You didn't punch him that hard," Ruth says. "He wants to stay asleep. Let him sleep. It's the best thing."

I signal everyone out to the sitting room at the front of the house, except for Merle, who decides to take the first watch on Haymitch. We don't talk about much. After a while, Kay turns on the television. There's news that the poor, tragedy-stricken victor of District Twelve has had another piece of bad luck. A reporter who clearly has never been outside the Capitol expounds on how stupid someone must be to try and climb a fence. Digger's Games interviews are duly played, particularly ones in which she came off as a little bit dotty.

I turn it off.

We try to talk about something else. _Anything_ else. No one has to ask why they would try to make a dead girl look stupid. Before they're done, they'll try to find a way to make it seem like Haymitch's fault, too.

Merle has to return the cart to the mines, so he and Kay leave just after moonrise. Glen makes a few awkward noises, then announces that he'd best get home, too, and that he sure hopes Haymitch will be all right.

"Thanks for helping," I tell him.

He nods and heads for the door. I think he's just going to leave, but he pauses. "This isn't right. What they're doing to him. Not just…" He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. "Not just… this. But… you've seen what they're saying about him. It's not right."

"No, it's not."

"Why do we let them?"

I shake my head. "Because we've got girlfriends and families, too, I guess."

"Yeah. That's probably right. Only it's not right."

"I know."

And there's nothing else to say. He leaves.

Ruth and I look after Haymitch for the rest of the evening. He wakes up briefly and asks what's happened to Digger's body. He seems lucid. Ruth checks him for responses. Eventually, she goes home. I can't think of anything to say, so I tell him how much Digger loved him and trusted him. He doesn't really respond. I guess I don't expect him to. I go downstairs to tell Dad he can eat now.

Dad has some kind of supper ready, and takes it upstairs.

Mom sits down across the kneading table from me. "Are _you_ all right, Danny?"

"What?"

"You heard me. You've been dragging around your friend like a breathing corpse all day. Are you all right?"

"No. But it doesn't matter."

She nods, expecting nothing else, and tells me to start cleaning the mixing bowls for tomorrow morning. She gets started on the ingredients, and when Dad comes down, carrying a still mostly-full tray, he moves today's things to the day-old racks for tomorrow.

It's an old routine. A comfortable routine. We don't talk much.

My parents swear that they love each other, but we _never_ talk much. They haven't shared a room ever, or at least that I remember, except for odd nights like this when we have guests. They must have been close at some point, because I'm here, but as far as I can tell, at the moment, they're well-matched roommates. I know they got married because Dad's family owned the bakery, but it's Mom who likes to bake (Dad's competent and has all the old family recipes, but it's the business part he really enjoys). They're very upfront about that. They insist that it doesn't make them any less fond of each other.

I hope I never end up with a life that boils down to being very fond of my business partner. I need more. More passion, more… everything. I love them, but I don't want to be like them. Ruth laughs at me for this (at least when she's in a mental place where she can laugh). She says my parents are perfectly happy, and I need to stop trying to make them into what _I_ want to be.

We get everything set up for morning, then Dad does the first different thing. He ushers Mom and me ahead through the door to the stairway, then he pulls out his keys and locks the door behind us. I start to ask why, then I understand: the kitchen is full of things Haymitch could use as weapons against himself.

He doesn't comment on this, or on slipping into the sitting room and locking the small liquor cabinet, which he hasn't done since Haymitch and I stole a bottle on a lark two years ago. He takes both keys to Mom's room and sets them down on the table beside her bed.

None of us is ready to sleep, so we go to the sitting room.

"I think," Dad says quietly, "that, if we get Haymitch through this, President Snow is going to be one sorry bastard."

I look up. My father doesn't talk much at all, not to anyone, and I don't remember ever hearing him swear.

"Let's get him through it before we worry about that," Mom says.

"Will he be okay?" I ask. It's what everyone's been asking me all day, and I've managed to avoid answering it, because I don't know. "I mean… will he still be Haymitch?"

"Depends on what you mean by that," Dad says. "I imagine he'll always have a shadow on him, on top of the one that was already there. He's never going to not have these experiences. But he's a strong-minded kid. I think there's a part of him that's holding on for dear life. And I think it's going to win."

"Should someone sleep in there with him?"

Dad shakes his head. "I took out anything he could hurt himself with, at least without making enough noise to wake us up before he could do anything. Let's let him sleep."

We go to bed early, like always, since we have to be up before the sun. I lie awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling, until sleep forces itself on me. I dream about the Games - about sitting there with Digger and Kay and Ruth, watching the big screen glowing above us. We clung to each other this summer, willing our friends to survive as long as they could.

Digger's eyes are wide and solemn as she watches Haymitch move through the forest. I ask if she's okay, and her skin starts to go gray. Smoke comes from under her hair.

I make myself wake up. I can't sleep. I hope Haymitch is doped up enough that he's not forced to stay in dreams like that. I still have an hour before we start the breads. I spend it making lists.

This is something I've always done, though I can't think of anyone who taught me to do it. Whenever things are bad, I find whatever scrap of paper I can (the insides of sugar bags are best, and I have a collection of them) and I write down all the things I hope for. I try to keep them reasonable, so that I'll be able to say that it's worthwhile to hope. And I must wish for things for at least two other people before I wish for something for myself. I made this rule for myself when I was eleven, when Maysilee called me selfish because I saved my allowance to buy myself sweets when people were starving. Her father lit into her for that, because all of us would go out of business if no one bought anything, but it hit me pretty hard.

My pen hovers for a long time before anything comes out. I let my hands doodle absently for a little while, making abstract patterns of swirls and lines. Finally, I write,

_1 - Haymitch will wake up. He will grieve. But he will wake up.  
2 - Ruth will come back to herself, and be able to laugh again.  
3 - _

I stare at the pen. I can't think of anything reasonable. Usually, I'd write something about passing a test, or getting a part in drama club, or having a decent life, or getting married someday, but none of that seems to matter in the face of what happened to Digger today. I want to write something I hope for her, but that seems even more pointless. I've read books that talk about life after death, and there are old songs about it, but she doesn't seem to be alive. She's ceased to be.

Like Maysilee Donner.

I can't think of anything I want for myself that doesn't sound petty when it's compared to anything happening around me. I put the pen down on the paper again, then write, quickly,

_3 - I will care about petty things again someday._

Maybe it's not the most inspirational idea that's ever come around, but I decide it's the best I can do. I hear the sound of my parents stirring down the hall, talking to each other as if there's nothing unusual about sharing a bed after so many years. When they get out, they're already talking business.

We've been at work with the bread dough and the doughnuts for about an hour when we spot Haymitch trying to sneak out. Mom releases me from work immediately, and I run after him.

He doesn't try to lose me, but he doesn't acknowledge me all the way out to his house in Victors' Village. I don't know what he wants here, though I try to get the curtains closed so he doesn't need to look out on the garden. There's a harsh ringing. It takes me a minute to realize that it's his telephone.

Haymitch doesn't recognize it right away, either, but finally fumbles into the study and presses the speaker button.

"Hello? Hello?" a woman's voice says.

Haymitch himself doesn't answer, so I say, "He's here. He's, um…"

"I'm here," Haymitch says.

On the other end of the line, the high voice goes on. "Sweetheart, it's Gia. I saw the news. I've been trying to reach you since yesterday. Oh, honey."

He blinks. "Gia?"

It takes a second, but I realize that "Gia" must be Pelagia Pepper, the Capitol escort. Haymitch seems fond of her, but I'm reserving judgment. "Miss Pepper?" I say. "I don't know if he's good for the phone."

"Of course not. Is there anything I can do? Anything?"

I look to Haymitch for an answer, but he doesn't offer one, at least until I'm about to answer for him, at which point he asks Miss Pepper to bring Digger a red dress. If this sounds as crazy to her as it does to me, she doesn't show it. She tells him she's headed up here. I've never seen an escort in the districts except during the Games. Maybe Haymitch is right to like her.

Haymitch goes quiet after this, and doesn't offer a goodbye. "Miss Pepper?" I say.

"It's Gia, honey. You're Haymitch's friend."

"Dannel Mellark," I tell her. "He's staying with my family at night. We're all staying with him during the day. But if your train gets in at night, or early in the morning, he's at the bakery. It's right on the square. You can see it from where the platform is during Reapings."

"Thank you. You take good care of him. And I'll be out soon to help. He's a good boy."

Haymitch doesn't respond to this at all. I nod. "Okay. I think he's done talking."

Miss Pepper and I say goodbye.

Haymitch wanders around for a little while, looking at the things in his house, none of which could be familiar to him. They haven't even given him a photograph of his family. Finally, I see him standing at the bottom of the stairs, trying to work up the will to climb them. I give him a hand, and he heads straight for his bed. I get him into it and throw a blanket over him, then close the curtains on the windows that overlook the gardens. "We'll get those bricked," I say.

He nods and says nothing, then rolls away. I think he goes right back to sleep.

Ruth shows up half an hour later - she must have stopped by the bakery and found out I was here - then old Sae comes an hour after that. She offers to stay with him for the rest of the afternoon, though Kay and Merle have offered to take the evening shift.

"Don't you need to be back at the Home?" I ask stupidly.

She gives me a bitter smile. "It seems I've been 'derelict,' whatever that means, letting the kids run around willy-nilly. I'm supposed to find some other place to make a living. They put one of those Capitol liaisons in charge."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well. I should've kept a better eye on her, shouldn't I? She's dead."

"Not your fault," Ruth says.

"Hmm."

Ruth and I check on Haymitch one more time - he's sleeping again - then head back to town. She fumes about Sae losing her job.

"You should come to the sweet shop," she says when I start to turn off toward home.

"I have to work."

"Your dad's manning the counter. Your mom's at the sweet shop. They told me to tell you, but I couldn't very well do it in Haymitch's house. Come on."

I frown. I can't imagine what they think they're doing.

Ruth leads the way through the narrower streets just off the square, past the apothecary (Ruth's mom is manning the counter alone), past the stationery shop (to my shock, actually closed), then to the sweet shop. We go straight past the counter, where Kaydilyn is sitting with a furious look on her face, then down into the cellar.

At least one person from most of the shops in town is here.

Mr. Donner - Maysilee's dad - stands up when he sees me. "I think that's everyone," he says. "Now… let's talk about what we're going to do about this."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**  
"I'm not sure what we _can_ do," Mrs. Breen says. She runs the haberdashery up the hill. "They can take everything."

"They _have_ taken everything from Haymitch Abernathy," I remind her.

"Except a house to live in. Which all of us would stand to lose." She holds up her hand. "I know, it sounds very trivial when you're sixteen and righteously outraged, but -"

"I'm not sixteen," Mr. Donner says. "And frankly, after losing a daughter, it sounds pretty damned trivial to me, too."

"So your answer is to risk the other one?"

"No one's saying it's cheap," Ruth's dad says. "But we have to stop putting up with it. Even if it's just something small. Refusing service to Beckett. We know she ordered that girl killed."

Mr. Donner shakes his head. "We can do more than that, Keyton. You know we can. You know where we come from. We lived in the out-districts for decades before we settled here. We can - "

"That was two hundred years ago, and we don't have guns anymore."

"What about the miners?" Ruth asks. "I know they're mad about Digger. They want to do something."

"We should _get_ guns," someone else fumes.

"We could burn down the Justice Building - "

"We could - "

My mother steps forward and holds up her hand until people are quiet. I've never understood why this works, but it does. "I think," she says, "that we need to talk about what we want to accomplish. And what we _can_."

This is followed by an awkward silence.

"What do you mean, Nella?" Mr. Donner asks.

"I mean, we have to do something. But we need to start out thinking what the end is going to look like. I know the miners are angry, Ruth. And they could do a more powerful thing than we could, cutting off the coal supply. But that would bring down the full weight of the Capitol. I don't think we can handle that. But maybe… maybe we could get rid of that woman. Maybe we could make her quit, or make her do something that would get the Capitol to recall her."

"You want to stop at one person?" Mr. Donner asks. "After… after everything?"

"I want to do something that we can _do_." Mom shakes her head. "Yolus, we can't take a real attack from the Capitol. you know that. I'm sorry about Maysilee, and if I could snap my fingers and make things happen, I'd take the whole rotten structure down. Stop the Games. Do you think I don't worry every year that they'll take Danny?"

"Which brings up another point," Mrs. Breen says. "Let's not kid ourselves. Some of the drawings may be honest - mostly because it's less trouble when there's nothing specific to look for - but we all know that if we do anything seditious, our kids could end up paying for it."

There's an explosion of outrage at this. About half the adults believe the drawings are fair. The other half think it's obvious that they're rigged. (Personally, I'm with Mrs. Breen. I think for the most part, it would be too much trouble to rig them, but I'm sure the Capitol's more than willing to put in the effort if it's deemed necessary.) Maysilee's tendency to denounce the government is duly brought up. I don't know if she would have been considered important enough to rig the reaping for. I _do_ know that she didn't take any chances. The night before, she filled out fifty Reaping cards from the stock of old ones in Herk Donner's shop, and snuck them in with the rest in the town offices.

I consider pointing this out, but we've all sort of agreed to not let parents know about it. Or Haymitch. It wouldn't make any difference now. Also, her uncle could lose the shop and end up in jail if the government found out she used it to tamper with the reaping.

The meeting has mostly degenerated into a free for all, everyone accusing everyone of letting things get this bad, no one really saying anything useful. Mr. Donner _wants_ all-out war with the Capitol. He doesn't care if he dies. Mrs. Breen and Rooba Murphy (the butcher's daughter) don't want to have _any_ trouble, and only came to try and stop people from doing something insane. Beside me, Ruth is getting that distant look on her face again, that far-off stare that means she's about to go away from me.

"Are you okay?" I whisper.

She shakes her head. "I need to get out of here, Danny."

I nod. Neither of us is in a position to make any decisions, and our parents will fill us in. I lead her upstairs.

Kay comes around the counter. "What is it? Is it over?"

I shake my head.

Kay takes a look at Ruth, shakes her head in disgust, and goes back to her stool. She steals a piece of chewing gum from one of the barrels (her father will find out later and probably make her pay for it) and starts smacking it loudly.

I start to ask what her problem is, but I'm a little worried that she'll answer - and that it would be hard to argue with. It's Kay who lost a sister, and Ruth who's been falling apart.

I lead her outside.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I just… why can't we even do something _simple_ without tearing at each other's throats? I thought when they said they were meeting that - "

"That what?" I ask . "That they'd sing some inspirational songs and issue marching orders?"

"Kind of." She moves on down the street and turns up a little path that leads to what we call our park, a windblown hill-top with crisscrossed logs that serve as an exercise toy for the little kids, and a seating area for parties for us. She gets to the first one and sits down heavily. From here, we can peek through the trees and see down to the street outside the sweet shop. "I just… I always told Maysilee she was crazy to rant the way she did. But she was right. And I thought…" She looks down. "I thought I could show her that I knew that. But they took it away, and they can't even do as much as we did."

"We never did much, Ruth."

"We buried that girl."

I sit down beside her. We don't talk about the girl from Six, the girl that Haymitch and I found dying of infected whip wounds. Ruth tried to save her, but it was too late. We buried her. "It's not that much," I say. "It's what anyone would have done for her… well, anyone not from the Capitol."

"No, it's not. You drew that picture to go in the ground with her. We covered her. You know they'd put us in jail for that. She was obviously in trouble. It was a real rebellion."

"It was a funeral, Ruth."

"Glen says it's the biggest rebellion, taking care of people when we're only supposed to be worrying about ourselves."

"It's not a rebellion. It's just what decent people _do_."

"Doesn't it bother you how few decent people there are, then?"

"I think there are plenty. And I bet they come out of there with a plan."

She looks at me skeptically, then settles into my arm. We don't talk.

An hour later, we see adults starting to come out of the Donners' place. Ruth goes back to the apothecary to find out what her parents are going to do. I stay on the hill a little while longer, then go home.

Mom raises an eyebrow at me. "Thought you'd want to be there."

"Ruth was kind of sick. From the fighting. Did the fighting stop?"

Mom nods. She takes us all back to the kitchen and turns on a mixer. Since we can barely hear each other, I guess any bugs the Peacekeepers might have snuck in here - if they'd bother with us - won't pick anything up. The upshot of what the adults decided was that our workable goal would be to remove Lucretia Beckett from her position, either by getting her to ask for a transfer or goading her into doing something that the Capitol would punish her for.

"That's all?" I ask, my heart sinking at the thought of Ruth's reaction. "Get rid of one Head Peacekeeper?"

"It's something we might actually be able to accomplish," Mom says. "We're not going to throw off the Capitol. But we can do _this_, at least. It starts with refusal of service. There are only a handful of shops that are going to be doing any business with Beckett. It'll make her stay very inconvenient."

"There are some shops that _will?_"

"The Undersees are in trouble if the government backs off. Their main business is keeping the public areas up. It's not like anyone has an ornamental garden."

"Merle's not going to like that."

"And the butcher shop. The Murphy girls. I guess we should have expected that."

I don't say anything. The Murphy girls - really two girls and their middle-aged mother - are cordially detested by most of the town. The mother had an affair with a Peacekeeper before (and after) her husband died, and the rumor is that the younger daughter, Mirrem, isn't a Murphy at all. Mirrem believes this totally, and doesn't miss a chance to tell everyone she sees that her "better" blood will show, and she'll go off and see the world. Mrs. Murphy lives in a fantasy where she also is going to be taken away to a magical world where she won't have to slaughter pigs anymore. Rooba, the older girl, does most of the work. She's steady and reliable, and most people would probably like her, except that she finds it necessary to stand up for her mother and sister, and has gotten into more than one fight about it.

I'm maybe the only other person in town who doesn't hate Mirrem (though I hate their mother quite freely). Mir's in drama club with me, and she's a really good actress. She starred in the commercial we sent to other districts to get them to order our special cakes (a huge expense, but it's paid for itself). She's just fifteen, and I think she's going to grow out of… everything. I also think that she's going to get her heart broken before that happens.

Also, while Ruth and I were broken up for a few weeks last winter, I spent a good amount of time licking powdered sugar off Mir's lips. That may factor into my not disliking her as much as some people do. It certainly contributes to Ruth disliking her a good deal more than most.

There's no chance to further discuss who's participating in the targeted boycott of Lucretia Beckett, because the afternoon customers start to come in, and I have clean-up and fire-tending to do. I also have my least favorite job, getting rid of the pastries. I tried to give them away once to some hungry kids, but we got in fairly serious trouble for distributing food without a charity license. The opportunity to buy such a license comes up every ten years, and is exorbitantly expensive. We had to pay a fine. So I have to discard perfectly good - if somewhat dry - pastries while hungry kids walk by outside. I do the best I can, and put it out as far from garbage pick-up time as I can, but unfortunately, pick-up is pretty frequent.

Around dinner time, Merle and Kay bring Haymitch back. He looks dazed and out of it, and I wonder if he's been drinking. Mom sets a place for him at the table, but he ends up just going back to bed. Mom brings him a little bowl of soup, but comes back with it and says that he's sound asleep.

"Boy has to eat something," Dad says.

"He will," Mom says. "But honey, what happened yesterday - it's going to take a while for him to come back from that."

Our evening routine is the same as ever, with the addition of Dad locking things up again. I check on Haymitch, who's sleeping fitfully, then go to my room and lie down. Try to think of nothing at all.

Somewhere in the small, dark hours of the night, Haymitch wakes up screaming.

I beat my parents into the room by a few steps. Haymitch is out of bed, crouching under the window, his hand balled up like he has a knife in it.

"Haymitch - "

"Leave me alone! Leave us alone!"

"Haymitch, it's me, Danny. You're okay, you're safe…"

He rocks back on his heels and starts to laugh wildly, and the laugh becomes a scream.

Mom takes a few steps toward him, and he swings at her with his fist, making a sharp downward arc at the end, like a stab. He gets up and starts pacing the room, swinging his arm in brutal swipes at something that's not there. He punches at the window, but misses, which is probably a good thing. Putting his fist through broken glass could get him seriously hurt.

Dad nods to me, and we rush in on him. It's probably not a great idea, since he seems to be dreaming of the arena, but we have to get him calmed down. I grab him from the right and Dad grabs him from the left.

He screams and lashes around, twisting and kicking.

We hold on.

Suddenly, he goes stiff as a board and lets out an anguished scream that sounds like it's tearing his guts out. When it ends, he collapses down to the floor, weeping in harsh, braying sobs.

Dad and I hoist him up and carry him to the bed. He's mumbling something that sounds like "Momma," so Mom gets up beside him and puts her arms around him.

"I'm so sorry," he mutters. "Momma, I'm sorry."

"Shh," Mom says. "It's all right, Haymitch. It'll be all right." She looks at Dad and me. "You two, get lost. Get some sleep."

I go back to my room, but sleep isn't an option. He keeps letting out pained screams for a long time, until it finally tapers off. A little while later, I hear Mom leave the room, but as soon as the door clicks shut, Haymitch starts screaming again.

I go in this time, and hold my hand up for my parents to stay out.

"Get out!" he yells. He's waving an invisible knife again. I guess he's dreaming of the arena.

I do the only thing I can think of to do - I join him there.

"Haymitch," I whisper, "I think they're far off. You want me to keep a watch so you can get some sleep?"

He looks at me warily.

"We're allies, remember?"

He frowns. "Did Chaff just make that up?"

I have no idea what he's talking about, but I say, "Yeah. Chaff made it up. Chaff thinks we should be allies. So I'm here. And I have your back. You go on and get some sleep. I'll wake you up if anything happens."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I got some sleep earlier, remember?"

He nods solemnly and sits down on the bed, curled protectively up against the headboard. "Okay. But don't let me sleep too long. We need to get moving in the morning."

"Sure," I say.

He drops off to sleep very quickly. I doubt it's an easy sleep, and I don't want to be the one to startle him out of it, but it seems solid enough.

I know I don't really need to stay awake. No one is coming after us, and there are no mutts in the bakery, but I stay awake anyway, keeping watch until the dawn starts to creep in and Mom leans in to signal me to come down to work. I guess I can keep watch from downstairs, since there's only the one door to the living area. I leave it open so Haymitch can come down and see he's safe if he wakes up with a mind to.

I'm not sure at first that I can just start the morning's baking like I haven't spent the last several hours dealing with a crazy friend, but the routine is numbing, and it feels good. I knead and shape and frost and drizzle. I mix spices for Mom and take things out to cool for Dad. I do some of my special cinnamon rolls. They're very expensive to make - they're very heavy on cinnamon, obviously - and Dad never dared make them himself, even though we had Grandpa's recipe. If we're going to take a hit from the Peacekeeper business, I may not be able to keep doing it, but for now, we have what we need.

I'm surprised by our first customers of the day - a pair of miners named Woodruff and Knight (at least according to the tags on their uniforms). They bypass all the cheaper breads and head straight for my fresh baked cinnamon buns.

"Like one of those, if we could split it," Woodruff says. "Hear they're the mayor's favorite."

I don't harp on the price. They can see it clear enough on the sign, and it's not my business to tell them how they can spend their own money, or suggest that they can't afford something. They'd take it as an insult, and they'd be right. "I think they're big enough for two," I say. "They use about the same dough as about an eighth of a loaf, so it'd be like two pieces of bread… but with better stuff inside. Want me to cut one in half for you?"

"Nah, we can split it our ownselves," Knight says. "Lots of people hearing good things about what you make here. I wouldn't be surprised if you see more of us coming in." He nods, and I understand. The shopkeepers may be making our little statement, maybe putting a little bit on the line, but somehow, word of it has gotten down to the Seam. Knight and Woodruff and telling me that people are going to trying and help keep us in business. They're not going to be able to help much in any real sense, but the idea that we're all in it together makes it more real and more possible.

I put the bun in a little box, then sprinkle it with a just a smidge of extra sugar and cinnamon. I wink. Woodruff winks back. We understand each other.

They leave, picking at the bun curiously.

Dad rolls his eyes at me.

The bell rings again. It's Mir Murphy this time, with butter from the butcher's cow to trade for bread. It's our usual deal.

She leans over the counter while I get her bread. "How're things?" she asks.

"Passable," I say. I'm not sure if she knows Haymitch is staying with us, or how she'd react if she _did_ know, since she considers Haymitch a very unsuitable friend - even after the Games. Lots of people are pretending now that they didn't loathe Haymitch before he became a victor, but I have to give it to Mir - she's consistent. She always thought he was a low-class dreg, and she still thinks so, though now she's also embarrassed that everyone sees him as the face of District Twelve. She's wrong, but I can almost respect the honesty.

At any rate, the feeling's always been mutual, so I guess I can't judge Mir for what Haymitch is equally guilty of. After all, people thought I was nuts to be his friend, too.

"Ready for school?" she asks. "I hear they're going to do _Agathe the Last_ for drama. Are you up for it?"

"I don't know that one."

"It's that play that's in Denmark - you know, in Europe? Her consort is dying and she stays with him even though there's a flood?"

"Oh. Yeah, sure, why not? Where'd you hear that?"

"Oh, around. I eavesdrop at school."

"There's got to be a better way to spend your time."

"In District Twelve?" She wrinkles her nose and gives an icy (but quite beautiful) smile. "I somehow doubt it."

She usually takes this kind of opportunity to spin a story about how she'll get out of here one day, but today, she just takes the bread I hand her and blows me a kiss across the counter. I don't _think_ Ruth could fault me for catching an air kiss, but I make a show of ducking it anyway. She sticks out her tongue and leaves.

Mom just shakes her head. I shrug. It was a refreshingly normal conversation.

We go back to work. It would be easy to believe that nothing unusual is happening until the bell rings for the third time. I look up.

Lucretia Beckett herself comes in, eyeing the breads and buns avidly. "Loaf of white bread," she says without a hello. "And one of the cinnamon buns as well."

Mom pulls me back away from the counter, then fishes under the cash register. She pulls out the "Closed" sign and puts it up.

"You don't want to do that," Beckett says.

Dad, who's usually pretty silent, stands up straight and says, "You're not welcome in this shop, or any other in District Twelve."

Beckett knows that, technically, we have the right to refuse service to anyone. It's on the license sign by the door. Everyone knows that this is really there to let dirty kids with no money know that they aren't welcome (not that my parents have ever turned anyone away before now), but the way it's phrased, we're well within our legal rights. She sneers. "Then every shop in District Twelve is going to be in a world of hurt. Ask Abernathy here."

I look up and, for the first time, notice that Haymitch has stepped out into the hall.

"Leave them alone," he says quietly.

"Or what?"

He looks at her blankly, and the low, quiet voice he answers with is more terrifying than any of his screaming last night "I won the Hunger Games. And I'm about ten feet from a whole lot of knives."

Beckett sees it as well. She tries to cover for it, but I can tell that she's actually a little bit frightened. "They'd hang even a victor for that," she says. "They might hang you just for saying it."

"At this point," Haymitch says, coming further into the room. "Do you think I really care?"

What happens next happens fast. She presses a button and two more Peacekeepers thunder into the bakery. They grab Haymitch by the arms, and my father yells that they can't take a guest from under his roof. They pull a gun on him. I see Haymitch's face, and I know that he has visions of more death coming down on his head. I touch my father's arm to get him to back down, then I throw off my apron and follow Haymitch and the Peacekeepers outside into the square.

"What's he being charged with?" I ask, and get no answer. "He hasn't committed any crimes. What are you going to do? What are you going to tell the Gamemakers?"

None of this gets an answer, but the mention of the Gamemakers sinks in a little bit. I see the Peacekeeper on the right slow his pace a little bit. Unfortunately, Becket shoves him and they start moving again, toward the old whipping post. It stands in the square like a war memorial, and that's all anyone has ever treated it as. It's a place people meet up after school, or at night to sneak off and have a little romance. (Ruth and I met up at the whipping post the first time we decided to sneak off for a little private time.)

Haymitch is dragged to it, his arms dragged up to the hanging shackles. Beckett fastens them around his wrists then yanks off his shirt.

I try to get to him, to get in the way, to… I'm not really sure what I mean to do, actually, but whatever it is, the Peacekeepers keep blocking me.

I see Beckett reach out and run her hand down Haymitch's spine.

_Everyone_ sees it, at least everyone in the square. And they must see the way Haymitch shudders, like someone's just dropped a leech on him.

Someone brushes by me, and I see a flash of bright lilac. A trail of perfume swirls around in the air.

Pelagia Pepper ignores the Peacekeepers entirely, goes up to Beckett, and says, "What exactly are you doing to my victor?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**  
I don't know exactly what Miss Pepper - Gia; she said I could call her Gia - says when she reaches Haymitch and Beckett, but whatever it is, it spooks Beckett enough that she doesn't argue when Gia orders her to release Haymitch on the authority of the Gamemakers. Beckett waves it off. Gia gets the shackles off of Haymitch's wrists, then holds him tightly, practically keeping him on his feet.

She signals to me, and I gather him up and lead him back to the bakery. Mom gets him back upstairs to bed.

I go back outside. Gia is sitting on the bakery steps, her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at the whipping post as if it might come to life on its own and hurt her victor.

"You want to come in and sit down?" I ask.

"I need to take care of things. The girl. I should get the burial dress to her."

"She's…" I look down. "I don't think you'll be able to dress her. She's… um…" I sigh and sit down. "It cooked her. She's kind of pulling apart."

Gia grimaces. "I'll find a way. I promised."

"Do you want help?"

She smiles at me faintly. "No. I'll find a woman to help me with something like that."

"My girl, Ruth, will help. She's at the apothecary." I don't think this is something I need to ask Ruth about. She's generally willing to help show respect to the dying and the dead.

"Thank you. You look after Haymitch today. I'll get him back to his place tomorrow and stay with him until he… until he comes around."

"He can stay here."

"I think it's wiser that if someone's going to be crossing your new head Peacekeeper, it's someone who has the protection of Capitol citizenship. She won't touch me. And I can stay in Victors' Village at night."

"She touched Haymitch. Just before you showed up."

Her mouth goes very tight. "I know. She won't be doing that again."

I nod. I hope she's right. "Thanks for coming out here for him."

"He's a good kid." She looks out across the square again. "I saw more of the Games back in the Capitol - in the Viewing Center - than you did out here. He's been through more than you know."

"I know _enough_."

We look at each other, then she pulls herself to her feet and heads for the Justice Building, her garment bag slung over her shoulder. I go back inside.

Haymitch is asleep upstairs for the rest of the day, and no one bothers him. Gia returns from the Justice Building after two hours, saying she has taken care of Digger and is forcing the return of her body for a proper burial. Ruth did help her in the end, and I guess she's not mad at me for suggesting it, since Gia doesn't say anything. I organize Haymitch's friends and Digger's to take care of a funeral. I help Glen and a few other boys from school dig the grave the next day, along with a contingent of miners who always volunteer.

Haymitch disappears the morning of the funeral, and comes back from the direction of Victors' Village, drunk out of his mind. Gia puts some pills into him that seem to wake him up a little bit, but he doesn't try to speak. He is wearing his district token again, which I guess makes sense, since it was from Digger. It's a knotted string that he wears as a bracelet. Kay Donner and Ruth have made quick bracelets of their own from packing string to show support. I half expect Kay to be wearing Maysilee's mockingjay pin as well (Haymitch brought it back to her), but she doesn't. They've made extra bracelets, and several of the people at the funeral are wearing them by the end. If Haymitch notices this support, he doesn't give any sign of it.

We go back to Victors' Village with him and sit in our usual shifts, though Gia keeps him there that night, so I go home alone. It seems very quiet.

The string bracelets start to spread around town over the next week. I make one from a flour sack tie. Most of them are made from the ties around sacks of tessera grain. No one talks about them, but when we see each other wearing them, we nod. We know. Something is building among us, but it's not clear yet what it's going to be.

This doesn't move up to the adult world. They have their boycott of Lucretia Beckett, and they're doing very well at driving her crazy. She has merchandise confiscated on a regular basis, and she locks my father in the stocks for six hours on the manufactured crime of contempt. Ruth's father temporarily has his business license suspended, but he's the only person in the district who sells certain pills the Peacekeepers want access to, so she has to let him open up again.

We tell Haymitch none of this. Though Gia has him cleaned up and sober, we can tell on his forays into town that he isn't right in the head. He terrifies Kay Donner, talking to her as if she's Maysilee and "rescuing" her from crows, sparrows, and even Maysilee's pet canary, which he tries to skewer in its cage two weeks after Digger's funeral.

"I can't have him kill Pineapple," she says, bringing the cage to the apothecary, where Ruth and I are sorting out tessera grain to take down to the Seam. "Ruthie, can you take him?"

Ruth takes the cage. "I don't understand."

"Birds," Kay says. "Birds killed my sister, and now Haymitch has it in his head that he can save her by killing… birds. Any birds in my general vicinity." She sits down on the high counter stool. "I don't know how much of this I can take."

"He'll come out of it," I say.

"You didn't see him. I'm not so sure."

Once Ruth and I finish up, I go out to Victors' Village. I haven't been for a couple of days, and I'm not sure why. Sae is out there, having a long, friendly-looking chat with Gia. Haymitch is listlessly watching television in the living room. I join him.

We don't talk, but when I get up to leave, he looks up and stares at me until I sit back down. Once I do, he ignores me again.

He finally starts to come out of the craziness when Gia says she has to leave. She comes by the bakery the afternoon before her train leaves, only a few days before school starts again. Haymitch is running errands at the bank. It's nearly Parcel Day again - when the victor's district is showered with food from the Capitol - and she will go out on the same train that brings the supplies. She's talking to Mom in the kitchen when I get back from a delivery to the mayor.

"…be okay?" Mom is asking. "Are the others? The other victors, I mean."

Gia sighs. "They're not the same anymore. But I was… quite close to Oliver… Blight, you'd know him as… in District Seven. We worked together for six years. We were…" She notices me and looks down. "We were close. That's why I was transferred out here. The point is, Ollie has his problems, but he's all right. He told me the craziness stopped after a few months. He said he was in his right head by the Victory Tour. Haymitch has had a bit more happen to him. But he's also stronger than Ollie, I think. He's stronger than most people I've met, including ones three times his age."

I sit down at the kneading table and start working. "I'm really glad you could come. Do you really have to leave? I think you help Haymitch a lot."

"I do have to leave, unfortunately. I have orders from the Capitol. If I don't follow them, then…"

She doesn't finish, and doesn't have to. If she ignores the Capitol, she'll end up one more loss to add to Haymitch's growing list.

She sighs. "He needs order in his life right now. Any kind of order. I wish they'd let him go back to school."

"You think he's ready for _school_?" Mom asks.

"I think he needs it. He'd fight it tooth and nail, of course. But when I gave him a schedule, made him get out of bed, made him wear clean clothes… he seemed to be much better. Will you help him with that, Mrs. Mellark?"

"If he'll let me," Mom says.

"He won't. But please do it, anyway."

"I could teach him to bake," I offer. "He needs a talent, right?"

"Oh, I hope you will," Gia says. "He thinks he doesn't need a talent. I think he needs something to do."

I promise to try. Mom promises to try.

Gia leaves the next day.

I volunteer to help unpack the parcels for Parcel Day, and I see Haymitch standing at the station, listless in Gia's embrace. When I'm finished with my shift, I go looking for him. He's at Herk Donner's shop, looking at books. I try to engage him in a conversation about them, but his answers are disconnected and distant. He lets me help him carry his purchases back to Victors' Village, but ignores me when he opens the big atlas and starts tracing the world's coastlines.

Sae shows up to make him dinner, claiming that Gia is paying her for this service. It may even be true. She pats my arm and says, "He's on the mend, Danny. It's slow, but he's on the mend." I look up and see him looking over at us, an odd expression on his face.

When I go back the next day, I ask him to tell me about the atlas, and we have an almost normal conversation. Haymitch compares the pictures to the old ones in his father's dictionary, a book rescued from the ruins of his childhood house. It doesn't seem to just be a dictionary. It has maps of places I've never heard of, and biographies of people whose names are long forgotten. I don't even know who got it for him. I should have thought to do it.

"School starts tomorrow, right?" he asks.

"Day after."

"So, you're going to be at school. During the day."

"I'll be up here right after, and if you need anything…"

"No, I'm fine."

"You want me to… I don't know, bring you assignments or something?"

He grins. It's empty and horrible, but it's also the real Haymitch, in some way. "You think I _want_ homework?"

"You know… just something normal."

"I can't think of anything less normal than doing that voluntarily. I got my own books. I'll keep up with what I want to keep up with."

"Oh. Right. And Gia didn't think they'd let you. But I still think…"

"They_ wouldn't_ let me. Not in a million years. I'm supposed to be enjoying my free time."

"I can see how much you're enjoying it."

"You don't need to babysit, Danny."

"Maybe I just want to spend some time with a friend."

"Yeah, I've been the life of the party lately. Go home."

"Are you going to be okay if I do?"

"Yeah. Fine as paint."

I don't trust it at all. Neither does Sae. Neither does anyone else. But school is back in session, and we're not allowed to skip. We set a watch on him when we are free, but I have nightmares of coming out after school and finding him dead of poison, or hanging from the fence where Digger died, or having burned down the fine house he lives in. I don't go alone for the first few weeks, since I'm sure I'll need Ruth right away.

None of those things happen, and Ruth has to stop coming. She has duties at the shop. Her father is training her, and Haymitch doesn't seem to need anything. Generally, I find him reading. He's also gotten out one of the journals in his study, and is writing in it. He locks it up quickly when I come in.

After a few weeks, it gets easier to not rush over there straight away. I catch Ruth slipping away from me again, and she seems to need me more, and we spend a lot of that fall holding on to each other. She is spending more time with kids from the Seam, too - without Maysilee, she and Kay aren't as close as they once were, and Kay is spending most of her time with Maysilee's hardcore group of dissenters. Merle Undersee has taken to confiding in me about his worry that she's going to do something crazy. Ruth is having nightmares about Kay being arrested and executed… or worse, sent into next year's arena to die.

At first, when I realize I haven't been to Haymitch's place for a few days, I panic and run most of the way out there, utterly convinced that he's dead, but he never is. Sometimes he even comes into town on his own to do business in the shops. He buys a lot from Mom and Dad, and even brings them a present (a new mixer) as a thank you. He may not be single-handedly keeping us afloat with the Peacekeeper business dried up, but he's a big chunk of the income.

He tells us to stop boycotting Beckett, of course, but the movement has gone way beyond a protest against the treatment of Haymitch Abernathy. Beckett's tendency to punish harshly has not been limited to Victors' Village, and now, nearly everyone has a grudge to tend, including the miners. They may not be boycotting anyone, but they've certainly made a great show of supporting us, which it turns out is something Maysilee was right about: The Capitol just will not have it. They end up with increased hours at no extra pay, and the word from the Seam is that they're being deliberately put in dangerous tunnels. Glen Everdeen is going to need to go down there next year, and he's always full of tales from his neighbors about creaky holding beams and thin walls.

"Of course, they're starting to tell old fairy tales, too, about monsters that you hit if you dig too deep," he says after school, as he walks through town with Ruth and me. He's headed out to the woods, but of course, we can't talk about that. "There's an old song about voices in the mountain."

"How does it go?" Ruth asks.

Glen sings a couple of verses - it's the same kind of even-tempo tune that's in most miners' songs, for the sake of keeping a hammer rhythm - but we come to the turn off for the apothecary, and he stops. "It's pretty long," he says. "About fifteen verses."

"If you come into town on Saturday, I'd love to learn it." Ruth grins. I have not seen that grin for a while. I should be glad to see it, for her sake. For my sake, I'm a little leery of it.

Glen agrees to come back into town to teach her the song before he goes "for a walk" on Saturday. He's careful to invite me as well. He saw that smile, too.

"Did you just ask another guy on a date?" I ask, trying to keep my voice light.

She turns and rolls her eyes. "Yes, Danny. It's standard procedure when you're cheating on someone to arrange your trysts in front of him."

"Well, it's just…"

"I'm allowed _friends_."

"Since when have I ever said you weren't _allowed_ to do anything?" I stare off after Glen, who has long since disappeared toward the Seam. "Ruthie, what do you mean by that? What do you mean by 'allowed'? Did I do something that makes you think that I think… that I'm in a position to… _allow_?"

"Nothing. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that." We start walking again, without talking. She stops before we reach the apothecary, at the steps of an empty building that used to be a second hand clothing shop. There's still a mannequin in the window, and it watches us impassively. "We've been together a couple of years, Danny. Eight months unbroken. We've… you know." She looks over her shoulder at the shop, where we did, in fact, break in last March and make use of the old private quarters.

"I know," I mutter, trying not to be distracted by images of her upstairs, her pale skin dappled by shadows from the mud splatters on the windows. "I was there, too."

"I guess I just assumed you thought we belonged to each other."

"I don't think you belong to anyone."

She sighs. "A very proper thing to say. Very modern. And complete crap."

"What?"

"I said it was mutual, didn't I?" She smiles and holds out her hand. "For the record, you are _not_ allowed to date Haymitch anymore. Just so there's no vagueness on that end."

"Damn, you caught me." I laugh and take her outstretched hand, and we walk the rest of the way back to the apothecary together.

I dream of the empty shop that night, only it's not empty. Ruth and I own it. I can't tell what kind of business we have, but we are happy, and the house is filled with the laughter of children I can't quite see.

I audition for _Agathe the Last_ after school the next day. There aren't many boys in drama, so I usually get the lead. I'm not too worried about it one way or another. I'm in a good mood. Mir auditions opposite me, and she's in top form, or at least as top as she gets without an audience. She's _good_ in rehearsals and auditions. When she gets an audience, she can play them like well-tuned fiddle. She wants to set up practices right after we read, but I remind her that it generally looks better if we wait until the cast list goes up.

On Saturday, we never do end up having a singing lesson. We wake up to a great clamor in the square. It seems that overnight, someone strung the doors of the Peacekeepers' barracks shut… with a knotted string that has been meticulously colored blue. It couldn't have been much more than a minute's inconvenience, but Beckett uses it to focus all her anger at the boycott. She drags out everyone wearing a knotted bracelet - except Haymitch - for "questioning" in public. Stuie Chalfant, an eleven year old kid who became Haymitch's biggest local fan during the Games, tells her to shove it, and gets a lash across the back of the legs. Forrest Hickman, who just started at the mines, loses his job when he tells her the next thing that will get tied up is _her_. Violet Breen gets a lash of her own, though I don't hear what she says. Glen Everdeen gets four hours in the stocks when he grabs hold of Beckett's whip hand and tells her to lay off.

She hasn't gotten around to Ruth and me when she gets a full confession from Elmer Parton, who foolishly also admits that he wanted to do it up to look like a fuse, but just couldn't get it to look right. Elmer gets four hours in the stocks as well, but his will be followed by ten lashes.

Beckett smiles unpleasantly at him. "Unless you'd prefer to apologize to me in private."

After two hours in the stocks - Ruth and I are sitting with Glen - Elmer starts to cry and says he'll make the private apology. When they pull him up, I see that Beckett or one of her Peacekeepers put two large stones on the ground under where he was sitting.

Elmer keeps his head down in school after that.

Our parents keep up the boycott, and I get more than one lecture about not doing anything as stupid as Elmer did. I doubt I'm the only one to get such a lecture. It doesn't help. Elmer's helpless little stunt opens a gateway, and through the month of September, it's rare for a day to go by without some prank on the Peacekeepers, or Beckett herself. Nothing deadly. Nothing even serious. But somehow or other, a length of knotted string, colored blue, ends up worked into it.

I don't do anything. This doesn't seem very productive to me, and I feel like I'm waiting for something more useful to come along. Kay Donner is furious at how juvenile most of it is. Ruth and I sit with her while she fumes in the basement about playing practical jokes when we should be gathering our resources for an all-out rebellion. Mr. Donner doesn't pretend not to know about this, and supports her whole-heartedly. Anyone who shows up for her meetings is given free sarsaparilla candies, and the boxes become another symbol we recognize each other by.

"Great," Kay mutters, pacing in the basement. "We have plenty of secret handshakes. That'll come in handy while we're planning to put fart cushions under Beckett's chair."

"What do you want to do?" Ruth asks.

"You know what I want."

"I know you want to rebel, but what do you want to _do_?"

Kay frowns. I doubt she has any clearer idea than the rest of us. Meanwhile, no one tells anyone else about planned pranks, and the Peacekeepers get better at ferreting out guilty parties. People are excused from phys ed for lash trauma or cramps from the stocks. Teachers who speak against "extreme punishments for children" lose their jobs - we go through three literature teachers in as many weeks. My mother ends up in the pillory for two hours one day because a letter she has written to Gia has been intercepted. In it, she begged for help for the boys who have been made to "apologize" over and over.

If getting word to Gia is considered dangerous enough to punish, I wonder just how much trouble Beckett might get in. Technically, the Peacekeepers aren't supposed to fraternize. That's why Mir's real father was sent away. Maybe it would be enough, if we could get word through.

I wonder if Haymitch has a way to reach her.

It's the first time I've particularly thought of him in about a week. He's been into town, looking mostly sober and well-groomed, doing his errands, but he hasn't joined us at all. I'm not even sure he knows what's going on.

I go out to see him. He is writing in the journal again, and locks it again as soon as I come in. We have a pleasant conversation, during which he uses the word "bug" about a thousand times, reminding me that I'm not free to say anything out here. He asks if I want dinner, and I joke that Ruth has forbidden me to date him anymore. This gets a vague smile. He takes the key to his journal and sets it very deliberately on the mantel of his fireplace, making sure I see this, then says, "You'd best go home, Danny. You have work to do."

I leave. On my way out of Victors' Village, I look back. Haymitch is out on his porch, looking across at the only other house out here that's ever been occupied - Duronda Carson's. She hanged herself from a tree a few years ago. Or, if you believe the official version, accidentally fell out of the tree, landing on a rope she was trying to secure for a swing. The top of the tree is the highest point in Victors' Village. You can even see it from town.

Haymitch goes back inside, and a minute later, I see the flicker of his television in his front window.

I go home.

I think about that journal key, so carefully placed, and about Haymitch staring at the hanging tree. I think about him acting so completely normal, when I know how far out of his head he was only a few weeks ago. I think of promising him that I'd keep watch.

I haven't been keeping watch. I've been doing everything _but_ keeping watch.

I get up in the middle of the night and climb out my bedroom window. It's far past curfew in town, but even now, the Peacekeepers don't really worry about curfew breaking. I make it as far as Victors' Village, but of course, the gate is closed. There is a patrol here, and I'm marched back to town. I think about telling the Peacekeepers to check on Haymitch, but I don't think that would be very useful. If they check on him tonight, they might stop him doing something crazy right now, but he'll wait them out… and he'll never trust me again.

I can't sleep, so I go to the kitchen in the bakery and take care of the early morning mixing before sunrise. When my parents come down, looking at me with groggy confusion, I head back out.

"Where do you think you're going?"

I look up. Lucretia Beckett is standing in the road, blocking the way out to the Village.

"I was going to drop in on Haymitch before school," I say.

"You were caught breaking curfew last night. What were you doing? What were you planning?"

"Nothing."

She reaches out and grabs my arm, pushing up my sleeve to reveal the knotted bracelet that I'm wearing. "Now, why don't I believe you?"

"Fine, whatever you think I was planning, that's what I was planning, only I never did anything. Can I go now?"

The bored amusement in her voice disappears. "You're expected to show respect to authorities. _You're_ not a victor." She picks up her comm and signals for a pair of Peacekeepers. They drag me into the square. People are starting to move around, doing their errands before work and school. They stop and stare at me.

Beckett takes her whip from its loop.

I resign myself to the post, but before I get there, my mother comes running out of the bakery. "Don't you _dare!_" she screams. "Dannel was in the bakery. He hasn't done anything."

"He was insubordinate," Beckett says, and directs the Peacekeepers to take me to the post.

"Mom, let it go," I say. "I can take it."

"Like hell I will!" She runs in on Beckett and grabs her arm, wrestling her for the whip.

Now we have a huge crowd. Everyone has had a chance to drift into the square.

Beckett shoves Mom away easily, then yanks my arm and pulls me away from the whipping post. She nods at her Peacekeepers. Two of them grab Mom. Another two hold me back.

Beckett loops Mom's hands into the shackles. She doesn't bother opening the shirt; that's only for the boys.

The whip whistles through the air, and my mother screams as a line of red opens up on the back of her baker's whites.

Beckett raises her whip for another blow, and another. I am screaming, too, and Dad has come out. He's blocked from the square by Peacekeepers with guns.

I am not seeing much of anything other than my mother's bloody back, but I hear the change in the crowd. A siren goes off. A Peacekeeper runs out into the square and grabs Beckett by the shoulder.

She turns on him in fury, then hears what he has to say.

Her whip hand lowers and she turns away from the post, toward Victors' Village.

I turn slowly, and that's when I see it.

At the edge of town, Duronda Carson's hanging tree is in flames.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Two: Initiation**

**Chapter Four**  
With a snarl, Beckett pulls back her whip and rolls it up, flicking Mom's blood distastefully away from it as she goes. The Peacekeepers outside the bakery let Dad out, and the ones holding me back let go. They run for Victors' Village.

I push through the crowd and get to Mom, let her out of the shackles. Dad gets there a second later. "Nella," he whispers, catching her as she sags to the ground. For the first time that I can remember, they look like a real couple. He even kisses her. "Nella, honey, are you okay?"

"I only took five," she says. "Hurts. But I'm okay." She pulls herself up and looks out toward the tree. Her eyes go wide. "He's started a war," she whispers.

"Whatever he did, it got you off that post," I say. "Let's get you home."

"No," she says. "I can get to my feet. I want to go out there - "

"Mom…"

" - but I wouldn't do any good right now. I'll get home. You boys go help."

"But - "

"They'll forget about me quick enough. I can take care of this…" She winces as she stands up.

"No, Nella," Dad says. "I'll take care of you." He looks at me. "Go on, Danny. Find out what's happening."

"Are you sure?"

He nods.

I head out for Victors' Village. Ruth is a few steps ahead of me, and I catch her by the arm. "Ruthie, my mom… could you check on her?"

"Your… " Her eyes widen. "That was your mom they were hitting in town?"

"It was supposed to be me."

She squeezes my hand. "I've got it. Talk to me at school later, if they have it."

She runs back toward town, and I continue on toward the fire.

It's been an unusually dry fall, and the tree is going up like kindling. Red flames leap up from it, and black smoke billows out.

A crowd from town is here, but the Peacekeepers are blocking us from going in.

"Put this out!" Beckett bellows, but her Peacekeepers just look at each other awkwardly - they have guns and whips and the power to put us in the stocks, but no one has hoses or buckets.

The gate opens and Haymitch comes out. He sits down on a rock, holding a cigar, of all things. "Sorry," he says coolly. "I guess it's easy for a spark to catch when things get this dry."

Beckett turns on him slowly. "You set this."

"Just an accident. You know how it is. Poor, drunk Haymitch, fumbling around, accidentally set a tree on fire. Sorry I interrupted your whipping. Reckon it must have just upset me, and I never can tell what will happen when I get upset." He brings up one hand, in which he's carrying a large kitchen knife, and smiles over the blade. Even I would back away from that smile if it were aimed at me.

Beckett steps back.

Haymitch puts down the cigar (which is unlit), pulls an apple out of his pocket, and starts cutting it up. His eyes remain fixed on Beckett as he does it. The smile does not change.

Beckett does not look away from him. "Someone put. This. Fire. Out," she hisses.

The Peacekeepers continue to shift uncomfortably, but Merle Undersee - who was probably first on the scene, as caretaker - calls out, "Bucket brigade!" He goes up to the Peacekeepers. "Easiest water source is on the far side of the wall. And we kind of have to get there to put out the tree anyway. I can tap the sprinklers, and there are big pots in Duronda's kitchen. Her talent was cooking. I have the keys."

The Peacekeeper he spoke to says, "Ma'am, this kid says -"

"Do it," Beckett says, not breaking her glare. "Just do it. Get the damned thing out."

The line breaks, and Merle leads the way in. Within minutes, he's got a line operating. I stay as close to the gate as I can. Haymitch gets up to join us, but Beckett pushes him back down. He continues to smile.

It takes an hour to get the fire out, and at the end, the tree is only a blackened fist raised at the sky. Somewhere in the middle of it - claiming that he's just keeping a rhythm for the bucket passing - Glen Everdeen begins to sing "The Hanging Tree," a song about a murderer who wants his lover to join him at the gallows. It's an old song, older than the Capitol in District Twelve. I don't know who was hanging anyone out here before the Peacekeepers, though. I guess it's the tree that made him think of it, though all of us with knotted bracelets probably shiver a bit about the necklace of rope.

I guess I could think of it as all of us offering to go to the gallows to rebel for Haymitch's sake, but I kind of think it's the other way. He was sitting out here on his own. He just joined _our_ rebellion, even if we were using him as a reason. He's the one who didn't need to be at the gallows, but he's come anyway. Though they'd never hang a victor.

Or maybe it's just an old song that happens to have easy harmonies and a steady rhythm.

When the tree is out, and we're all standing, ashy and coughing, in the acrid smoke, Haymitch stands up. He goes to Beckett and stands as close to her as he can without touching her. "Now leave," he says.

She takes a step back. "You're overestimating your importance, Abernathy."

He steps into her space again. "Guess I'll find out."

She holds her ground for a minute, then grimaces and turns around. "Show's over, people!" she shouts. "Disperse!"

She does wait for at least a few of us to actually disperse before she gathers herself and marches her Peacekeepers back into town.

A muted cheer breaks out, and I'm about to join it when I notice that Haymitch has collapsed back down on to his rock, his hands linked behind his neck.

I go over. "Thanks for helping Mom."

He looks up, confused. "What?"

"With the whipping?"

"That was your Mom?" He jabs the knife into the ground. "I'm going to kill Beckett."

"We're trying to get rid of her. Possibly without having the whole district scourged in retaliation."

He nods slowly. "I didn't come out to burn the tree," he says out of nowhere, then shakes his head and says, "Get as many as you can to Maysilee's shop after school. Don't all come together. She'll see if you do. I'll try to get in early, but I'll have to dodge them, so they don't post a watch."

"What are we doing?"

"For one thing, you're learning not to get caught."

He gets up and goes back into the Village without saying anything else.

"What's that about?" Glen asks me, coming over as he wipes his hands on his blue jeans.

"Meeting after school."

"Are we supposed to be in _school_ after all that?"

"Didn't hear anything about it getting canceled."

He makes a disgusted gesture. "I don't have anything clean for it, either."

"I'd loan you something, but we're not the same size."

"It's okay. I've been in school in dirty clothes before. Guess we won't be the only ones, anyway."

I look around. Other kids are moving through the smoke like grimy wraiths. As if to rub it in, the school siren goes off - unexcused absences. They'll be around to round us up in half an hour if we don't get in there.

The fire was early, so by the time we get to school, we've only missed our first classes. Peacekeepers try to gather names, but a lot of teachers mysteriously forgot to take attendance. Mrs. Mozine, who teaches housekeeping, is pulled out of school when she tells the Peacekeepers that she wouldn't share information, anyway. We all hear her screaming at the whipping post during second period drama class (a rare luxury that's always in danger of being taken away). I think about Mom while Mir tries - with a rare lack of success - to keep the rest of the room interested in a monologue.

I meet Ruth in third period, just before literature class starts. She's just coming in, but everyone's pretending she's been here all morning. She says Mom will be fine. "I cleaned and bandaged the cuts. She'll be a little stiff for a while, but she's okay."

"Thank you."

She takes my hand. "Do you want to do something after school? Maybe… shop for secondhand clothes?" She waggles her eyebrows.

"That's such a better offer than the one I already accepted."

She grinds her teeth. "Fine."

"Maybe after?"

She sighs. "No. I only have an hour after school before I have to get back to the shop."

I kiss her. "Tomorrow, okay?"

"Is that a firm date?"

I wink. "Getting firmer as we speak."

She laughs and rolls her eyes, and Mr. Kiggen starts class. We're reading Early Capitol literature this term, and I decide that it would be a good idea to distract myself form the idea of "secondhand clothes" as much possible. It's not that difficult - I've gotten a lot of practice at distracting myself, and I like a lot of the stories. I kind of wonder how the Capitol went from the band of hardscrabble survivors who filled out a ruined city to… what it is now. You have to kind of wonder what people who lived hard, nomadic lives for a century after the Catastrophes would think of their descendants creating the Hunger Games and entertaining themselves to death in the lap of luxury.

Even with the stories, it's hard to imagine the world then, before the Capitol. The city that would become District Thirteen was standing, and I guess they were trading with the people who used to live here in Twelve, whose descendants now live on the Seam. There might have been travel back and forth, though no one is sure; the Capitol isn't keen on having people think there was a functioning society in place before they moved in and took over both districts (this is referred to as the "final in-gathering," as it took place after the rash of voyages around the world, finding survivors scattered over the earth and bringing them in to the new land of Panem). I think maybe there _was_ travel, along with trade. Just an instinct. I mean, coal has to be sold somewhere, and the one thing that's sure is that the little remnant surviving up here in the mountains was mining coal, as they'd been doing for generations. And if they were trading, then why _wouldn't_ they travel, at least for business? And what did District Thirteen give us in return, back before they were a district?

Well, not _us_. The merchants - my ancestors - came in later, remnants of the same kinds of wandering bands that founded the Capitol. Here in District Twelve, we mostly came from a group of people who'd escaped a place called Ireland just before the sea rose and ruined the land. We don't really know how long we were traveling around in caravans over our new continent, feuding with other out-District raiders, before we were given a home. My dad will talk about it at length if I give him half a chance. We were traveling traders, and apparently, we understood whatever strange dialect had developed out here (it's long since disappeared), so the Capitol gave us a town, and the next thing we knew, here we were, perpetually stuck between the Capitol and the Seam.

"Mr. Mellark?"

I look up. "Yes?"

Kiggen shakes his head. "You off somewhere in your head that you want to share?"

"Just off on a tangent," I say.

"Is it related to the story at hand?"

Since the story at hand is about how the daughter of one of the nomads builds the first glass house (from fused sand left over from the wars, no less), I allow that it probably isn't, and try to focus for the rest of the class.

In fourth period math, I hear a few people wondering why there are so many kids in school covered with dirt, and then I remember that I'm one of them. The fire at the tree. Mom getting whipped.

School has a way of making everything else seem unreal. I don't know whether I love or hate it for that.

Fifth period lunch brings things back. Several of us in my grade and the next grade up were at the fire this morning, and we look at each other wearily under smoke-stained faces. People who weren't there want the story. I have to be careful who I talk to, who I say what to.

The person I need to talk to most is Kay Donner, but she's giving an impassioned speech to the cafeteria workers. Ruth finally manages to distract her and bring her over, and I write her a note in Haymitch's shorthand about getting into her uncle's shop after school, and keeping it _quiet_.

"He'll be there?" she asks when she deciphers it.

I nod.

She bites her lip. "Uncle Herk will let him in if he gets there early. I'll get the word out."

"Kay?"

"_Quietly_," she whispers, putting her finger over her mouth in an exaggerated gesture.

I am in the middle of sixth period (mine safety) when the school network comes on. I drop the fake explosive I'm holding, which is an automatic failing grade for the day. Since I'm not going to end up working the mines, I guess it doesn't matter much.

Standing beside our principal, Mrs. Limbogger, is Lucretia Beckett, smiling unpleasantly.

I look over at Ruth, who has managed to not pretend to blow herself up, but is shaking badly. She puts her fake dynamite down carefully. I take her hand.

Mrs. Limbogger doesn't look like she's far from shaking herself, but she's obviously been told to smile enthusiastically. "Attention, students," she says. "Head Peacekeeper Beckett has come with a great opportunity for our older boys and girls! Officer Beckett?" She steps back from the camera and nearly collapses into the chair behind her desk.

Beckett saunters forward. "Beginning tomorrow," she says, "we have been authorized to train an official emergency response team. Boys fifteen and up - and girls - are welcome to apply. This will lead to paid work in the case of emergencies - explosions, illness, fires, floods, things of that nature. This team will also be appointed to arrange necessary burials."

I look around the room. Everyone looks as suspicious as I am.

"After this morning's rather lackluster performance, it has been decided at the highest levels that District Twelve deserves trained responders. All untrained personnel will be removed from emergency sites, so that inefficiencies like this morning's will not be repeated."

Elmer Parton snorts beside me. "Like she wasn't the one standing around with her thumb where it don't belong." It's the most I've heard him say since she had him taken out of the stocks for a private apology.

Beckett finishes up with an admonition to sign up for training at the Justice Building. They can pick up an application at the school office. I can see a few people fidgeting around, writing down the information - no chance to make money is going to go completely ignored in District Twelve - but more just look stunned and puzzled. This is not the way things are done here.

I think about it throughout seventh period (history) and eighth period (physics). Ninth period is for activities, and I'm sort of expected at rehearsal, though I figure I'll have to bail early if I'm going to get to Haymitch's meeting.

When I get to the empty classroom where we do early scene readings, I find Mir filling out a long form.

"The emergency crew?" I ask. "Really?"

"There are enough emergencies around here. It'll be good money. I need to put together a video audition to apply for drama school. It won't be cheap." She signs it with a flourish. "Will you do some scenes with me for my video?"

I sigh. There's no point in dissuading Mir from her schemes to escape District Twelve. When she's not waiting for her father to sweep her away, she imagines that she'll get the single District berth at the Capitol drama school. It's not that she's not good, but I can't believe that someone in District Twelve is ever going to be better than _anyone else_ in all of Panem. Well, except Haymitch this year, but that's not exactly typical. "Sure," I say. "You know I will."

"Are you applying? It shouldn't get in the way of shop work any more than the regular system does, since you always run out for fires anyway."

"No. I don't want to… why are they doing this? We did perfectly well this morning."

"Everywhere else has real, trained forces."

"We're not everywhere else." I glance at the form. "Can I see it?"

She shrugs and hands it to me, then buries herself in her scene. The beginning of the form is more or less the expected - name, parents' names, address, business. There's the usual specimen slide, where they'll put a drop of Mir's blood to have her DNA on file, like on the tessera forms. I have no idea what that's for, unless they think she'll try to send someone else in to work for her. The rest of the first page is about experience and strengths.

The segue into the next part of the application isn't at all subtle - it's an oath of loyalty to the "proper government" of District Twelve. After that, there's a series of short answer questions, probably meant to trap any infiltrators from Haymitch's group. They're all about why the new system is going to be preferable to the old one. ("Name two ways in which standardized training will improve efficiency at emergency sites" - Mir has written, "1. Impersonal motivation. Response will not depend on whether or not the victim is well-liked. 2. Official alarms to let people know what sort of emergency they're responding to?")

I read through the rest and hand it back to her. "Mir, you know people would run in to help you and your mom if something happened at the shop."

"Yeah, right. They love us so much."

"They never liked Haymitch much, either, but they'd have helped him."

She laughs bitterly, and the sun from the window catches in her hair, turning it ice white. I am very aware of the warmth radiating from her hand, which is not far from mine. "Sure they would. I remember how everyone went running when his father half burned their house down."

"Mir - "

"_You'd_ come running, Danny. You and your mom and dad. Most of them would just throw a party and make fun of us if we got poor." She shakes her head. "You really don't know that, do you? I don't know whether that's sweet or annoying."

There's no opportunity to discuss the true nature of District Twelve, because Kiston Drew, the student director, comes in with a few other cast members, and makes us go through the opening scenes. I beg off halfway through, since he can still run Mir through her paces in a scene with her attendants. I have to get to the stationery shop.

I at least arrive alone, though it's not really by design. There are a few people there already, mostly Seam kids who tend not to have ninth period activities, though I'm not entirely surprised to find that Kay is one of the early arrivals. She's skipping sports for it.

Haymitch is looking at a sheaf of papers that I realize is one of the emergency crew applications. Gone is the crazy boy from this morning, threatening Beckett. Also gone is the one who collapsed to the rock after she was gone. This Haymitch is studiously casual. He also smells like half a bottle of white liquor.

I go over to him. "Looking for a hobby?"

"They'd never let me get near something where I could burn my face." His words are slurred, but not too badly.

"I don't know what this is all about."

"You don't?"

I wait for him to explain, but he seems genuinely surprised that I haven't gotten there yet. "Well?" I prod.

"We don't have a lot going for us out here," he says. "But we do know how to do the simple stuff. Get people buried. Put out fires. It's not 'cause anyone's especially nice. But you can't really look your neighbor in the eye if you skip out on the fire. Now, you can't do anything at the fire. So there's nothing to answer for. You can stay home and keep your head down. You almost have to." He tosses the application aside. "And they'll pick the ones who'll make the best Capitol pets. Parade them around. I bet they're standing around in uniforms when the cameras come back out here."

It's hard to argue with that, and I guess it's probably a big part of why Mir is applying.

The door to the shop upstairs opens, and a handful of kids comes down. Glen Everdeen is among them. He's wearing a knotted string as a necklace. Ruth comes down a few minutes later. She is knotting another string, and she hands it to Dusty Mezzersmith as I watch.

She notices me and smiles, coming over and slipping her arm around my waist. "Wasn't expecting you until after ninth."

"I got away."

"A daring escape from the great dangers of drama club?"

"It was harrowing. It involved a swordfight, a hover craft, and a really strong flying pig. I had to steal some of Mir's hair to make a harness."

Haymitch laughs. He seems surprised by it. Ruth rolls her eyes.

More people drift in over the next fifteen minutes or so. I see most of Maysilee's group, except for the ones who are already working in the mines. They won't be out for several hours, so I guess we can count them out. Kay comes over and takes the application from the table where Haymitch left it. She reads it, glaring at it like it is responsible for all of her misfortunes. She sits down beside Haymitch. He glances at her and looks away, decidedly uncomfortable. My guess is that he's fighting really hard not to see Maysilee's ghost. I kind of think he's losing the fight, too.

I try to think of something that will get Kay up off the bench she's sitting on and somewhere out of Haymitch's sight line, but I come up blank, at least for anything Haymitch wouldn't see through right away. It's not like there's anything I can ask her to show me, and since Ruth's right here, I can't pretend that I'm slipping away with Kay to plan some kind of surprise. Anything I could say would very obviously be, "You're making Haymitch crazy. Move." Haymitch would not appreciate that.

He solves it himself after a while of trying desperately to look in any direction other than hers. About ten minutes after what would be the end of ninth period, as the last of the stragglers come in, he gets up and goes to the pile of crates that Maysilee always used as a podium. He doesn't do anything at first, except pull a flask out of his vest and take a long drink of something. My mom would probably tell me that I should stop him (she's death on drinking, since her brother drank too much before he died), but I can't see the harm. He's not doing anything crazy. The booze seems to be keeping him on an even keel at the moment.

I decide not to tell Mom about it.

Finally Haymitch puts the flask away, stands behind the podium, and says, "Hey!"

This doesn't exactly cause everyone in the room to drop their interests and listen, but it does get them started, and it doesn't take long for conversations to wind down.

Haymitch waits until everyone is looking at him, then says, "Sorry I've been gone. I'm back. And I think we all owe the Capitol a little payback now."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**  
Kay Donner sniffs. "Sorry, Haymitch. We didn't wait for you. We're already doing it."

"You're already getting whipped and taxed and beaten and stuck in the stocks," Haymitch says. "It's time to start fighting _smart_. Which will put us a few steps ahead of Beckett."

"She's been doing pretty well so far," Elmer Parton says. "Got us… doing things. Making private apologies."

Haymitch pauses for a minute as that sinks in. "How many?" he asks. "No… don't tell me. One is too many. I'm sorry. I think that might be…" He shakes his head. "Point is, that's a dumb risk for her to take."

"You want one of us to kill her while we're 'apologizing'?" Morell Hooker asks. "'Cause I'm up for that. Even know the right move to do it on. I've been thinking on the subject since my last apology."

"No more apologizing," Haymitch says. "From anyone. If she wants apologies, she can try to take 'em from me."

I look up. "What?"

"Don't worry," he says. "She knows better." He takes a deep breath, and another draw from his flask. "Thing is, she doesn't know we're not dumb enough to kill her, and she's still dumb enough to put herself in a position where it'd be pretty easy to do it. We're not exactly dealing with an evil genius here."

"That's all well and good," Kay says. "But she makes them apologize to stop hard whippings and sitting in the stocks with rocks under them."

"So don't get yourselves sent to the stocks!"

"We're not going to stop fighting!"

"I'm not telling you to stop fighting, Maysilee. I'm just saying, do it smarter."

"I'm Kaydilyn."

He blinks blearily, then shakes his head. "Right. Sorry. You have to stop getting caught. Do things, but… don't let them see your faces."

"Mostly, they catch hold of us," Glen says. Ruth looks at him and smiles. "Peacekeepers. They'll figure out who we are pretty fast if they get hold of us."

"Then you don't let them get hold of you." He looks around. "That's the first thing we're doing. If you want to fight, learn to fight. I'll teach you stuff they taught me in training. And stuff I just know because I had to get away from… well, quite a few of you over the years."

There's some uncomfortable shifting at this, but Haymitch doesn't seem poised to start lobbing individual accusations around. Instead, he breaks us up into groups of two and starts teaching us to get out of a bunch of different ways people might grab hold of us - by the hands, the arms, in a headlock. There are a lot of ways to get slippery. When he's helping Ruth and me, I get a solid whiff of him. The fumes make me dizzy.

"What if they pull their guns?" Ruth asks. "Clever little tricks aren't going to help if they do that, and I don't know many ways to cure a gunshot."

"If they pull a gun, you're going to get shot," Haymitch says coldly. "Sooner or later, they'll get around to that, but for a while, I think we can skate. They don't like shooting us because it's less workers in the mines if we die."

"I'm sure that's comforting for bakers," Ruth says. "And you smell like a still, Haymitch Abernathy."

He narrows his eyes. "Sorry I'm not meeting your standards," he drawls. "And as for bakers, I got other plans for Danny." He looks at me. "You're going to keep your nose clean. I'll explain why later."

Without giving me time to answer, he moves on to help Merle Undersee get away from Glen. This doesn't seem like a fair match, but I guess the Peacekeepers aren't all that likely to be fair.

"He's going to get alcohol poisoning," Ruth says. "What's he trying to do, drink himself to death?"

This sticks in my mind, starting to make a picture there. I think of him this morning, nodding and saying, _I didn't come out here to burn the tree_.

I reject it. Haymitch didn't fight as hard as he did to survive just to finish the Gamemakers' work for them.

Ruth has to leave after twenty minutes. She reminds me that we have a date tomorrow, and disappears upstairs, stopping along the way to share a joke with Glen Everdeen. They laugh together. I don't know what they're joking about.

I work with Haymitch for the rest of the session, but we don't talk.

When people have to start drifting out, Haymitch holds me back. He also signals to Merle Undersee. Once everyone else is gone, he says, "This is the last time I want to see either of you at one of these."

"Like hell," I say.

He ignores me. "Merle, as far as anyone knows, you're just the gardener who keeps waking me up too early. Let's keep it that way."

"I led the fire brigade," Merle reminds him, puffing out what little chest he has. He's only a year younger than Haymitch and me, but at the moment, he looks about twelve, posturing to be allowed to hang around with the big boys. I hope I don't look the same. "She'll remember that I was the one who set the whole thing up."

"And did a fine job of it," Haymitch says. "Which is why you ought to be a shoo-in for her little emergency team."

"I don't want to - "

"We need to know what she's saying to people she thinks are on her side - "

"Mir's applying," I say. "Mirrem Murphy, from drama club. She could -"

Haymitch wrinkles his nose, and I stop talking. He looks back at Merle. "We need someone we can _trust_ in there. You talk to Ruth about plants. Slip her information, and she can tell Kay, and Kay can tell me."

"Or I could just tell Kay," Merle says. "We're kind of getting to be friends, and - "

"Kay's got almost as much attention on her as I do. Back off."

Merle sighs. "Guess I never had much chance with her, anyway."

"What?" I hold up my hand. "Haymitch, you can't tell people not to - "

"And you," he says. "I don't care what your parents have to do. Tap dance and carry the national flag. Sing the anthem in the square. Do whatever you need to, but get back on their good side."

"Look, Haymitch, I know you feel bad about Mom getting whipped - "

"It's not about that. Merle, are we on the same page here? Will you get on the response team?" He holds up the application.

Merle takes it glumly. "If you think it will do any good."

"It will. Go on." He waits for Merle to leave, then says, "Danny, I wish it was because I wanted to protect you. But I need you to do something really dangerous. A lot more dangerous than putting firecrackers in the Peacekeepers' toilets, or whatever this bunch is doing. And you need to keep your out-district shipping license to do it."

"The license?" I shake my head, trying to make sense of it. "Why would you care about that?"

"When you ship a cake, it's got paper under it. I've seen it."

"Yeah…"

"So, I need to get word to Chaff and Seeder in District Eleven, and _not_ on my bugged phone."

"What…?"

"I think Beetee in Three, too. Not sure, not until I talk to Chaff. I'm a little out of my depth here, in case you didn't notice."

I let this sink in. He's not kidding about the danger, and some of it won't come from the government. My neighbors will think we've turned on them. But he's asking us to be couriers… and not just in our little local tantrum. "You're going to war," I say.

"I'm _at_ war. I've been at war since the Reaping. Right now, the other side's winning." He turns. His eyes don't quite focus on me. I'm not sure if that's because he's drunk, or because his mind is back in the arena. "They'll have the bakery bugged by now. Sorry about that. Guess you shouldn't have taken me in."

"Yeah, right. That's _your_ fault."

"So talk to your parents somewhere else. And find a way to get word to me. Maybe Merle - he is still doing the yard work. But you'll have to be careful. I don't want them watching him too much, either."

"I can still come out to see you. You're still my friend."

"I don't think I should be anybody's particular friend. Gia knows you're my friend, but I don't think anyone else would think it was weird if you stopped coming around. And Gia's not here." He drinks.

"Haymitch, are you okay?"

"Peachy. You?"

He shuts me out without even turning away from me.

I take the cue and start to leave.

"Danny?"

I turn halfway up the stairs. "What?"

"You've always been my friend."

"I still am."

He nods. "So, whatever I have to do - "

"Yeah," I say, and turn again.

"Danny?"

I look over my shoulder. "What?"

He's standing at the bottom of the stairs, shifting around uncomfortably. "Um… thanks."

I nod. I have no idea what, exactly, he's thanking me for, but I say, "You're welcome."

I leave.

The days are getting shorter now, and with a building cloud cover, it's almost dark when I get outside. I go back to the bakery and help my parents, none of us talking to each other. For once, it doesn't bother me.

I go to my room and do my homework. It seems strange to worry about math, and instead of doing the problems I've been assigned, I find myself sketching - very wastefully - in my school notebook. I doubt I'd ever be good enough at it to make a living, but I guess I do it well enough, and it helps me think.

I draw Haymitch on the stone bench this morning, his hands clasped behind his neck, his curly black hair sticking out every which way. I also draw him before the Games, when he was just a restless kid with a few too many brains leaking out of his ears. He's laughing in this picture.

I draw Ruth on the next page, her thick, soft hair spread out in a halo around her delicate face. Her eyes are closed and she's biting her lip. She looks like an artist's dream, something untouchable, no matter how well I know she likes to be touched. I erase her eyes and re-draw them, slightly open, ringed with soft lashes. I try to make her smile, but I've already managed to make a mess of her mouth, so I can't. I let it be.

I turn the page and draw Mir, her clouds of curls tumbling around her shoulders and cascading almost to her waist, held in check only by the tiniest clip at the top to keep it out of her face. I give her a sharp little smile. I have a hard time with her eyes. The thing that always strikes me about them is that they're reflective - not just the way anyone's eyes are, but in a way that you always see what you most want to see in them. I give up and just give them a little mischievous twinkle.

I turn another page and draw Merle Undersee, looking young and hurt, and Kay Donner, haranguing the cafeteria workers, her long blond hair flying around her as she moves. I fold the paper over and rub it, leaving a ghostly mirror in smudged pencil - Maysilee, trailing beside her, the ghost she can never shake. I draw Elmer Parton crying in the stocks, his wide miner's shoulders slumped, tears streaming down his square-jawed face.

I draw Glen Everdeen, singing "The Hanging Tree." I think about the way people join him when he sings, like mockingjays waiting for a tune to copy. I think of the way Ruth perks up when she hears him, even when she's gone somewhere inside herself.

I stare at this drawing. Glen isn't particularly good-looking, though I guess I'm not the best judge. He has straight black hair in a longish cut and gray eyes, and a typical Seam build - strong and wiry - and a square face that somehow seems older than he is, even though it's not particularly care-marked. He must still be growing, because his clothes are perpetually a size too small, and he spent all summer barefoot until the charity shoes came around. He obviously tries to shave with something, but it's not a proper razor, because he's always got little cuts on his face, and tiny patches of hair left over. It's not his looks that make people stop and look at him. It's his voice. It's the way even the birds stop singing to listen.

It's the way my girl smiles at him, tells him jokes that I can't hear.

I turn back to the picture of Ruth, and wish we could afford a telephone. And that she could, since it would be pointless to have the only one. It would be bugged, but I somehow doubt the Capitol would care if I called to see how she was, since we barely talked today.

It's probably nothing.

I tear the sketches out of the notebook and shove them in my desk drawer, then make myself go back to math problems. I finish up and go to bed an hour or so later. Bakery work comes early.

I get up in the pitch dark when my parents' alarm goes off, and we go downstairs for our usual routine. Beckett comes in to test us.

I sell her a cinnamon roll.

Mom looks at me, shocked, when she leaves. I grab a piece of packing paper and scribble (trying to look casual, like I'm just writing down ingredients or doing a budget), "Haymitch needs us clean. I will take care of what he needs, but it could be trouble if I'm caught. Okay?"

They read it and nod - I'm grateful that they aren't the sort to make a scene - then I "accidentally" grab it with a bread pan, and it goes into the oven. Dad makes a show of chastising me for wasting materials.

School is tense, with Peacekeepers visiting several classes, never explaining themselves. I see Ruth run up to Glen in the hall once. They laugh about something, then go on to their next classes. I try to remember if Ruth ever runs up to me.

She rolls her eyes at me when I bring this up in mine safety and says, "Why would I need to catch you between classes? You're _in_ my classes… I just see you when I get there."

"Maybe you just couldn't _wait_ to see me?" I suggest.

"Then I rush to class and hope you'll be there early, too. If it happens that we're not walking there together in the first place." She kisses my cheek. "Danny, please remember where I plan to be this afternoon. It's just fun to have a new friend. That's all." We get into the history classroom and she takes her seat. "Thanks for _finally_ getting jealous, though. I was beginning to worry that you didn't care."

"What?"

She grins, but I notice that it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Well, with all those drama club meetings and running up to Victors' Village, I've been thinking I might have to start fighting for you."

"Yes, you caught me, Ruth. I'm having a crazy affair with Haymitch. We're going to announce our engagement any day. Sorry."

"I knew it," she says lightly, and turns around for class. I bend over and kiss her head, then go to my own seat.

I spend the rest of the day looking forward to our date, and I'm glad that there's no ninth period rehearsal today. She skips chorus practice. We meet out front after eighth period. Her face is flushed, and she's been biting her lip, which is a little bit swollen. I kiss her properly.

This gets the first real smile I've seen in a while, and she slides her arm around my waist as we start walking. Mine goes comfortably over her shoulder.

"Don't you need to pick up your tessera grain?" she asks.

"What?"

"It's the twenty-third. If you miss your pick up, you can't get it, and old Mr. Fife will be awfully hungry this month."

I have entirely forgotten about this, but of course, she hasn't. "I guess we could swing by there," I say. "Do you want to go before we…?"

"Danny, I do _not_ want to rush our… shopping… so you can get out on time to run to the Justice Building. Let's take care of that first."

"Oh. I can fully support those priorities."

"Yeah? Good."

I lean into the turn around the next corner, almost dancing with her. She laughs.

I decide that we're going to be okay.

The justice building looms up beside us, and we go in, heading right when we go downstairs. I glance at the Peacekeepers' office, across from the tesserae office. Mir is there, probably trying to get a letter to her father again. I don't mention it. It seems wise to keep Mir out of things this afternoon.

There's a small line at the tesserae office, all Seam kids who look at me like I'm some kind of alien, even though they've seen me here before. Across the hall, I can hear the muffled sounds of laughter. I can't imagine what it is.

They finally call my name. Mrs. Bragg, who works the desk, pretends not to recognize me when I sign for my grain. She knows perfectly well that I'm not taking it to my family, which means I'm distributing it illegally. It's easier for everyone if she doesn't acknowledge that.

We're heading out, and my brain is already halfway to the secondhand clothing shop, when the laughter comes from the Peacekeepers' office again. Without the tesserae office door closed between us, I can hear now that it's a cruel sort of laugh. The Peacekeeper Cray is waving a piece of paper around behind the counter, and Mir is trying to grab at it. She's weeping. I have never seen her cry off stage, and this is nowhere as picturesque.

I stop.

Ruth looks in. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and says. "Okay. Go in."

"It shouldn't take - "

"Just go."

I open the door.

"Give it to me!" Mir screams, and I realize that her tears are, more than anything, from rage. "Just give it to me, it's mine!" She tries to climb the counter, but it's just a little bit too high.

Cray laughs and scoots backward. He's reading something on official Peacekeeper stationery. "…_and_," he continues, "I suggest you stop writing to me. I'm not going to start caring about some District brat - "

"It doesn't say that!"

" - who could've come out of a dozen or more men, for all I know, given what a whore - "

"It doesn't say that!" Mir screams again. "You give it to me!"

"Oh, it says it, and more," Cray tells her. He crumples the letter and throws it over the counter.

Mir dives for it in a corner, pulls it out flat, then throws it away. "It's a lie!" she says. "This isn't from my father."

"Apparently not," Cray says. A few more Peacekeepers come in. Ruth slides in with them and tries to pull Mir back from the counter. This is a fruitless exercise, but I do, quite suddenly, see why - Mir's fingers are flexing, and her usually almost angelic face is twisted with murderous anger.

I pick up the letter. It has all of the words Cray read, and more besides, insulting Mir's mother and telling her that she's nothing but a worthless bastard girl, and suggesting that she find a more productive line of work, which shouldn't be hard for her if she looks as tasty as her mother used to and… I scan to the bottom. It's all the same hateful stuff. It's signed "Justinian Benz, Head Peacekeeper, District Eight."

"You tell me where that really came from!" Mir screams. "You lied! Admit that you're lying! That's not from my father!"

Cray laughs merrily. "You keep asking if there was word from him, little miss. You got word, didn't you?"

Mir grabs a flower vase from the counter and smashes it, taking a vicious swing in Cray's direction.

"Get her out of her, Ruthie!" I yell. "Now."

But Ruth can no more control Mir than she could control a tornado. Mir is tiny, but she's full of rage. She leaps at the counter.

The new Peacekeepers grab her. They're laughing, like Cray, and I wonder if they can even see her face. It's not a face that ought to be inducing anyone to laugh. One of them flips up her skirt. She kicks out, but Ruth manages to drag her back far enough that the kick doesn't land anywhere.

Cray comes around the counter to join the merriment. He grabs at Mir's knee. "You got any of those special talents dear old Dad mentioned your mom having? Want to give us a show?'

Mir yells and tries to get at him. Ruth barely holds on. I try to get to her, but Cray shoves me aside easily.

He grins at Mir, hands outstretched. "You look like you got talents. Assets, anyway." He reaches out and grabs her breasts.

I grab him and shove him as hard as I can, away from her, and for the first time, he takes actual notice of me. He sneers. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"What am _I_ doing? Let her alone."

He laughs. "It's just in good fun."

"Yeah, I can see how much fun she's having."

Ruth has grabbed Mir in one of the holds Haymitch taught us to get away from yesterday. Mir is biting her arm, trying to wriggle out. Her hand is stretched out, the broken vase still making sharp, short arcs in the air.

Cray turns away from me and takes another step toward her.

I grab him again, and I pull my fist back. I've been in a few fights in my life - who hasn't? - but this is the first time I'm consciously aware of wanting to kill someone. I drive my fist into his face, and I hear his nose break. Hot blood flows over my knuckles, and I think, _Good._

The laughter stops.

Cray puts his fingers to his face and feels the blood. "Take him," he orders the others. "Twenty-five lashes."

"No!" Ruth cries. "No, please!"

Crazily, as I'm grabbed by four Peacekeepers, I think that Haymitch will kill me for not keeping my nose clean. I try to slip away using what he taught me, but nothing he taught us would get me away from all four pairs of hands.

They drag me outside, the girls coming along behind. Ruth has let go of Mir, and I have a vague sense that they're trying to fight with the guard around me, to no great effect. I do hear one of the guards say, "Swing that again, Miss, and you're up there next."

I'm shoved roughly to the whipping post, and I feel the shackles go around my wrists. My arms are raised to the top of the post.

Someone rips off my shirt. There is a cold October rain falling.

I am really expecting someone to stop it. I don't know why. I've seen and heard enough whippings in the last couple of months that I have no right to expect anything, but I am sure, completely and utterly sure, that something will stop it.

Until the first lash burns across my back.

I hear the girls screaming louder than I hear myself, but I know I'm screaming. It's… surprising. There's no other word for it. You can't see it coming. It flies in out of nowhere, stinging like a lick of flame across my flesh. I can feel the first one. It goes from just under my left armpit to the bottom right part of my ribcage. The second one crosses it like an X.

After that, I can't tell where they land, because my whole back is a wall of agony, and the thuds of impact disappear into the greater pain. My muscles spasm, and I can't seem to get a really good breath to scream with. By the sixth lash, the world is going dark and red. I see Ruth from the corner of my eye, throwing herself against the wall of guards. I can hear my mother yelling. Someone else is shouting obscenities. Mir is shoved into the stocks across from the whipping post.

Ten lashes.

I manage to pull in a long breath, but it stretches the whip marks, making them come alive. I can see my blood on the ground.

Somewhere after the fourteenth lash, I pass out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**  
I don't know how long I've been out when I start to be aware of people around me. I am lying on a table on my stomach, my face turned out so I can breathe. I am aware of pain, but there's so much of it that I can't really locate it in my back yet, though I know that's where it's coming from. I can feel heavy wet cloths on top of me, and I can smell a lot of what seems like liquor.

Someone is holding my hand, occasionally stroking my arm. I don't know who. It's a smallish hand, so I guess either my mother or Ruth.

I can't open my eyes.

"He awake yet?" someone asks. I think it's Haymitch's voice.

The voice of the person holding my hand says, "No. There's no change."

It isn't Ruth or Mom. I think it might be Mir.

"Yeah, well, your sister says you have to get back to the shop."

"Is she kidding?"

"I don't think so."

The warmth in my hand leaves, and I feel the hand rest briefly on my face, then Mir (I'm reasonably sure now) says, "Thank you. I… I'll come back."

I try to say she can, but I can only get my mouth to open and close a little.

There's a rush of footsteps, then I hear a chair scrape back.

"You're hearing, aren't you?" Haymitch asks. "I can see your mouth moving."

I try to open my eyes again. They flutter, and I get a blurry view of a basement. The apothecary basement.

"Yeah," he says. "I see you. Guess you're not in shape to say much. That's okay. You should've seen me after the Games."

"Sor…" I manage to breathe out, but my eyes close again.

"Sorry?" I hear Haymitch get up and shove the chair back, then I hear something smash. Then I hear more smashing. I push my eyes open and see Haymitch doing a great deal of violence to Mr. Keyton's counter stool. He throws it out of the way then puts his hands in his hair. "Danny, if you ever use the word sorry about this again, I'm going to thrash you myself."

The noise has woken me up a little bit. I try to find words. "I… didn't… nose… clean."

"That's okay. You're not doing anything for… for any of this. Not again."

"My… call."

"I don't specially enjoy seeing you bloody. I'm not going to watch you get hanged. You're about the last friend I have."

I want to tell him that this is most likely useful, that I can act like they've cowed me and I'm scared of them, and they'll believe it - they want to believe things like that - so it will all be easier, but I can't even seem to get out a few words to start the thought process. I just blink a few times.

Haymitch goes to the counter and gets a large bottle of white liquor. He takes a swig, then says, "Ruth says this will keep the cuts clean. You've been screaming, so I guess it'll hurt. Wish it didn't, but it's time."

I brace myself.

Haymitch moves his arm, and rational thought disappears as soon as the liquor hits my back. I black out again.

When I come to again, there's a coal oil lamp burning, and I see Ruth sitting in the little circle of its light, reading. The light of the flame catches against her hair and makes her seem to glow like an ember in the darkness. The pain is still there, but it seems a little bit better.

"Hey," I manage to croak.

She turns. "Hey," she says. She comes over to the table, which I now recognize as their chopping table (I've done a few afternoons slicing up herbs here), and sits down on a chair. I'm guessing it's not the same one Haymitch thrashed earlier. She puts her hand lightly on my shoulder. "How are you?"

I think about making up a story, but I don't have the energy for it. I say, "Not great."

She nods and moves her hand to my head, stroking my hair. "I've been going through every old notebook we have. Trying to find the best mix of things. I wish there was snow. There's a mix they used for cuts that goes into snow - my great-grandmother got it from someone down on the Seam - and it's supposed to be better that way. Best I could do was soaking cloths in cold water with the infusion in it. I don't feel like it's helping. Should hurt less than the liquor, anyway, though you're well disinfected. It's going to scar. I don't think I could have done anything to keep it from putting scars on your poor back. I -"

"It's helping," I say. "It's better. Not great. Better."

She nods. "Your mom's upstairs. She was here earlier. Your dad, too. They have to keep up shifts at the bakery - you know. They're not allowed to close."

"I know."

"And, um, Mir was here. She's…" Ruth grimaces. "She's very impressed with you. I tried to tell her you'd have done it for anyone, but… she has a whole white knight picture built up."

"You can tell her I'm not very chivalrous."

"I don't lie as well as you do, Danny." She stands up, then leans over to kiss my cheek. "Don't do anything so stupid again. Promise me."

"I - "

"Promise me, Danny. No more stunts. I can't do this." She kisses me more properly, but I have to turn my head, and it disturbs one of the healing cuts on my back.

I wince and pull away.

"I'm sorry," she says.

I manage to lift my hand - not enough to actually reach hers, but she sees the motion and grabs hold. I smile as well as I can. "Marry me."

She blinks owlishly. "What?"

"You heard me."

"We're sixteen, Danny."

"So we don't do it tomorrow. But… marry me."

"We'll talk about this when you're not half dead," she tells me, and kisses my hand. "Right now, I'd do anything you think you want, and you think you want… well, you're not feeling right."

"Is that a no?"

"That's a we'll talk about this later."

"Do you think you'd like being married to me?"

She rolls her eyes and moves to kiss me again, this time being more careful. "You asked me that when you had the flu last winter, and when I sprained my ankle last fall. I'll go to my grave loving you, Danny, but you're driving me crazy right now."

I guess this is fair. It can wait. "How long was Mir in the stocks?"

"She told you?"

"I saw."

Ruth gets up and goes back to the counter, where she has a mortar and pestle set up. She starts grinding something. "She only did half an hour. She swore at Beckett. Beckett isn't looking to scare girls into making apologies." She thinks about it. "Either that, or she wanted the stocks cleared for Haymitch. She never put him in, but she had the Peacekeepers holding him back."

"What about you?"

"I don't shout as loud as Haymitch or Mir. And I knew I better stay out of the stocks if I was going to get you back here."

"You got me back here by yourself?"

"Partway. Glen ran in to help when I got you out of the square. He couldn't get through the crowd before."

"Oh."

"You should sleep."

"I've been sleeping."

"Your body needs time to knit up those cuts. And get over the shock of it." She smiles. "Don't worry. We'll all be watching over you."

I don't go to sleep right away, but she turns deliberately back to her work, so I'm not keeping myself awake on purpose. At some point, I drift down to sleep. The last thing I see is Ruth, in the bubble of firelight, glowing. I dream of her on fire.

She keeps me asleep for most of the next two days with doses of sleep syrup. I see people drift through the basement from time to time. My parents, mostly. Mir. Ruth's dad. Kay. At one point, I wake up to find Mr. Keyton rousing Haymitch from what seems to be an enhanced sleep and sending him home with an admonition to stop drinking. Mr. Keyton helps me back and forth to the bathroom a few times, but mainly, they have a pad under me that they keep changing.

By the end of the second day, my back still hurts, but it's also itching badly. Ruth puts a padded bandage on it and gets me up to a seated position. "It's time for you to go home," she says. "Your parents are waiting. And you have to be in school on Monday. I gave your Mom instructions. She's been taking care of her own marks, and you'll be able to as well, once the stripes on your shoulders calm down a bit." She closes her eyes. "I still wouldn't send you away, but Dale Gallentine just got caught stealing tessera grain, and he got fifteen lashes. Less than ten, I can treat them and send them home, but I…"

"…need the table?"

She nods and starts crying.

Carefully, I reach out and put my arm around her. It hurts, but it's better than not doing it.

After a minute or so, she helps me down and leads me away, while her father and Glen Everdeen bring in Dale, who looks to have taken at least one of the lashes to his face, though I doubt that was on purpose. He probably just tried to turn around. He's conscious, but not by much. Mr. Keyton clears away the padding, puts down new, and helps Glen get him onto the table.

Ruth gets me upstairs, where my parents are trying to pay the Keytons. They aren't having it. I'll bring them bread this month. They'll take that.

My parents take me home, walking slowly along the uneven cobblestones.

Haymitch is waiting on the bakery porch. He stands up when we approach.

"Thank you for watching the counter, Haymitch," Mom says. "Hope it won't cause you trouble."

"Oh, even they don't care if I have a couple hours hobby," he says. "They'll probably spin it as you helping me out after Digger passed."

"That's fine." Mom and Dad go inside.

He looks at me. "You okay?"

"I'll be okay."

"Yeah. Look, Danny, I know I placed that cake order with you, but I'm not going to do that. Not with your back looking like that. I'll just call Chaff and Seeder to say thank you."

I know perfectly well what he's saying. I answer that instead. "I'm good. I can bake a cake and get it sent out. You just tell me what you want on it."

"I -"

"Haymitch, man, I could use the cash. And, um…" I try to look as shifty as I can. "I won't be getting in any other trouble. I don't want to take any more whippings, you know?"

His eyes widen. "Danny…"

"I know. I'm soft. Can't take it, you know? Sorry." I put my head down and go into the bakery, leaving Haymitch behind me.

It doesn't take long for people to find out that we've "defected" from the rebellion. I don't know if Haymitch spreads it around, or if it just comes from the fact that the place is always full of satisfied government customers, but one way or another, we start losing business from the other merchants, and the Seam business - never very big - disappears entirely.

Ruth seems to know it's an act. When I get back to school on Monday, she puts on the air of the loving but long-suffering girlfriend of a coward, though after school, when I go over to the shop to have her check my wounds, she holds me and tells me that she loves me.

I get a lot of nasty glances at school, and a few puzzled ones. Everdeen is among the puzzled, and I get the sense that he's trying to work the whole thing out. Kay Donner is furious with me, and will not speak to me, or to Ruth (presumably for the crime of staying with me). Merle shoots me a knowing glance.

Mir misses rehearsal on Thursday because she's gotten detention for fighting with another girl. No one tells me, exactly, but I have a feeling - mostly because of Ruth's level of annoyance - that she was defending me. It's not the first detention she's gotten for fighting, and I don't think much of it either way.

I find myself spending more time at home. Most of my friends are either furious because they don't know what I'm doing, or keeping their distance to keep up the illusion of what I'm doing. So there are a lot of quiet hours in the bakery, working with my parents to keep the place afloat. I stop wearing my knotted bracelet. The Peacekeepers seem satisfied that I'm cowed, and occasionally make whip sounds while they're in line, and laugh if I jump.

Being properly cowed is supposed to have rewards, so some of the onerous taxes go away, and they renew our out-district license without an argument one week after they tore flesh off of my back in the Square.

Two days after that, Haymitch comes in.

"Changed my mind about sending that cake," he says. He sneers at me (though he's not a good actor, and I can see that it hurts him) and adds, "If you're still up to baking."

"Yeah," I say. "I can still do that. For District Eleven?"

"Chaff Leary, Victors' Village. Well, to Seeder, too, but send it to Chaff's house."

"Sure." I get out my sketch book. "What do you want on it?"

"A chess board. Eight by eight grid? It can be black and white or black and red… well, really any alternating colors. Man's a chess champion. Have you seen a chess game?"

I nod. I'll have to look up a picture in the library to get the chess men right, but I know the basic idea.

"Eight by eight grid," he repeats.

"Yeah, I…" I frown. Obviously, this has some significance. Haymitch is sweating. Maybe that's because he's clearly drunk again, but he also seems nervous. Eight by eight. "Okay. Got it. The grid. And I'll get some chessmen on it."

This gets an actual smile. "Make him the black knight, and Seeder the queen."

"Okay. Any words?"

"Here, give me that." He takes my sketch pad and stares at it for a long time, then quickly writes, "Thanks for everything in the Capitol. Haymitch." He hands it back. There is also a long, thin strip of paper with an incomprehensible string of letters:

NEEANODLEARGODSPWCOEWOHPHENDWFULEKROHRREAEANAITADEMTTEHSPPPKTNEE

He makes a point of sliding this under the page we've been using, and I raise my eyebrows to ask if this is the message. He nods slightly.

"Sure thing," I say. "This is doable."

Haymitch nods and starts out, then turns around. "Hey, Danny?"

"What?"

"Maybe you could, I don't know, put a little pawn up on the other side of the board, with an axe hole in him?"

I roll my eyes. "I'll make it bleed raspberry sauce."

"That'd be cool."

"I'll walk it up to your place to show you before I send it. That's when you pay."

He nods and leaves.

I put the small slip of paper into my pocket, so it doesn't get lost, then get to work on the list of ingredients. Just because it's a secret message - a totally incomprehensible one - doesn't mean that it doesn't have to be a good cake. I have to make it believable that a victor would hire me over my mother for this kind of work, without people second guessing him.

Also, the bakery's reputation is at stake. I find that this matters to me.

It takes a few days to get the ingredients. The cake ingredients are standard, but I want to do the chess board in blackberry jam and diced apple, and that means finding someone who has a stash of them. Apples aren't too hard. They're in season and at least two trees grow inside the fence. Blackberry jam means finding someone who trades in the black market, since they don't grow in the fence and are out of season. I finally find Sae, who's been scraping together a living by making preserves from things people have brought her from the woods, and she sells me a jar… though she gives me a nasty look when she does it.

I plan to make the chess men out of sweets, which I buy from an ill-tempered Mr. Donner, who shoos me out of the store as fast as he can… probably before Kay can come in and see that he's doing business with me.

I wonder if I'll ever be on good terms with the district again. It seems like a big trade-off to mail gibberish.

I bake the cake on Friday evening, the night before the train will leave. That will keep it as fresh as possible. It won't be a multi-tiered affair, just a flat cake, so there's not a lot special I need to do. I wait until Mom and Dad go to bed, then take out a flat, sturdy base for the cake. I pull out a length of lining paper and, pretending to double check against my drawing, scribble down Haymitch's line of letters. I put it face down and wrap the board as I always would. The grease from the cake will make it visible to Chaff when he finishes eating. What he'll do with it from there, I don't know.

I put the cake together the next morning, careful to keep it as good as it can be. Once I finish, I inspect it for any problems. It's not perfect. I've seen perfect cakes in catalogs from the Capitol, and I don't know how they're accomplished. But it's good work. It will pass.

I take it to Haymitch. He approves, once he very carefully counts the squares on the chess board.

He pays me. When the deal is done, I start to ask if he wants me to stick around, but he's already turning away. Disgusted with the soft kid who can't even take one whipping without breaking. He's at his bar and opening a new bottle when I decide to just leave.

I ship the cake.

I don't know what I expect to happen. I guess if they spotted anything, I'd find out soon enough, but I guess they didn't, because no one breaks down our door to take me back to the whipping post. We get the shipping receipt a week later, so it definitely went to District Eleven. I don't hear anything else.

In school, play rehearsals go on. Mir makes a point of talking to me in public as much as possible, to show that _she_ doesn't care what people think. I suspect this doesn't help my reputation, but it's nice of her. She's accepted onto the response team, and spends a lot of time complaining about having to clean up after various bits of vandalism. I ask if the Peacekeepers are giving her any more trouble.

"No. I… I suppose I shouldn't have lost my temper at them. I'm sorry it got you into trouble. I won't bother them anymore."

"That letter… was it from your dad?"

She sniffs. "He signed it, didn't he?" She will not discuss the subject further. We go back into character, and work out the long, closed-room second act, where my character is dying, and hers is trying to keep him alive by telling stories, a task made more difficult by the lack of fresh water, as the sea has surrounded the castle. Eventually, my character dies, and hers throws herself into the roiling sea. This is a common end to plays from the era, to the point where we make fun of it in literature class, threatening to fling ourselves into the sea for everything from a bad grade to hangnail. Mr. Kiggen has actually made blue pillows and thrown them around the room, so he can urge us to get to it and stop wasting his time.

I consider bringing up my proposal to Ruth again. It's not like there are a lot of people here, and it's not a bad idea to have your family ready to go when you start running your business. I've discovered that this is generally not a good way to put it (not all girls, apparently, are as pragmatic as my mother), but it's true. In the end, I decide not to raise the subject.

Kay Donner gets put in the stocks several times, and I believe that she's even given the opportunity for a private apology to Cray. She kicks him hard enough to make private apologies difficult for a while, and gets another six hours. She limps for two weeks. For a while, she's seen going out to Haymitch's place a lot, and rumors hit the air that District Twelve's bereaved victor has found deep happiness with his ally's twin sister. Kay cuts and dyes her hair, and stops visiting Haymitch altogether.

As November turns cold and soggy, Ruth and I have a fight. It starts out about the play - she says she doesn't like coming to my plays because she doesn't want to watch me kiss Mir, which is ridiculous - and ends up about half a dozen things that have been on her mind. We break up, which I figure will be for a few days, like usual, but I am, at the moment, unpopular enough that people rally around her for breaking up with me. She looks at me helplessly in the cafeteria. I roll my eyes and wave it off. It'll work out in the end. It always works out for us.

My back is as healed as it's going to get. It's still sore sometimes, and now I have red scars etched all over it, but any chance of infection is gone, so I don't need to go to the apothecary for check-ups. I can't seem to catch her alone otherwise.

The play goes off perfectly well in December. At the cast party, Colt Kiraly sneaks in white liquor that he bought on the black market. I have a little too much of it, and things happen with Mir that probably shouldn't, if I mean to fix things up with Ruth. I tell her so the next day. She shoves me into a cold puddle and runs off, leaving me with exactly no friends.

That's why I'm the one who ends up going down to the station to pick up our shipments from the train. Dad usually lets me have some time on Saturday if I'm not on a special project, but I don't have anything to do, so he decides to keep working on the books and send me out with the hand cart. We've ordered flour and raisins and some fruits from District Eleven.

"Sign here," the train attendant says, pointing to the receipt form. "And here… and here…"

I look dully at his hand, and notice something between his fingers. When he sees me looking, he moves it deftly so I can see a rough bird drawing, then crumples it and shoves it into his pocket.

I roll the handcart over to our crates. The one for the fruit seems to be very large.

It also has holes drilled in the sides.

I roll it back into town as quickly as I can, and take it around the back of the bakery. We use it for outside tools and paint, but for all the Peacekeepers know, we store baking supplies out here.

I take a crowbar and open up the fruit crate from District Eleven, letting the front panel fall forward.

From inside, I see a pair of dark eyes looking out at me. I know those eyes. I've seen them on television for the last seven years.

"You need help getting out?" I ask. "Or do you just want me to fetch Haymitch for you?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Part Three: Human Sacrifice**

**Chapter Seven**  
He needs help out of the crate.

He hasn't been in it all the way from District Eleven - the rebellious worker from District Six let him out to stretch his legs last night - but it's been a good number of hours, and by the time I get him extracted, it's obviously that he's in a significant amount of discomfort.

He waves this off with the stump of his right hand. "When some idiot from District Four has broken every little bone in your hand so it swells up like a lopsided balloon," he says, "a couple of leg cramps don't seem so bad. I just need to work them out. Chaff Leary."

I nod. "I guessed. Well, recognized. Danny Mellark. You want me to get Haymitch?"

"Go inside and wait half an hour or so. Do what you'd normally do after unpacking a crate. Then get him. And don't run back here, either; I can see you thinking it. Make it look like something a normal person would do, if that's not too much to ask." I don't know what's on my face, but it must look confused, because he lets out a frustrated breath. "What'll it look like if you unpack a crate then suddenly rush off to Victor's Village and come running back with Haymitch in tow? Even the idiots they put in the Peacekeepers' ranks will spot _that_." He picks at some packing material caught in his fine suit coat. "Honestly, you kids. No idea. _Grid codes._ He's lucky we're not all hanged already."

I stay a minute longer, but he continues to ignore me and mutter about easy-to-crack codes and crazy kids, so I take it as a dismissal. I go back inside. Dad's still bent over the books. Mom's making hermit cookies.

"Did you get the shipment?"

"Yeah," I say. "I unpacked it right into the shed, like usual."

She narrows her eyes, but she knows something's going on. She nods. "Well, you get to your homework then, Dannel. I don't want to see another math test like the last one."

I go upstairs to my room and I do take out my math book, thinking that maybe I could say I need Haymitch's help with a problem. He's no great shakes with math - books are his thing - but everyone thinks he's a genius, and they think that geniuses are good at everything, so they'd believe it. And all they need to do is check the grade on my last test to know Mom's not kidding. I don't know how I'm supposed to run a business someday. I have no head for numbers. Dad's disappointed about this.

I don't start my math homework.

Instead, I reach into my desk drawer. I still have the code I sent for Haymitch. I should have burned it, and will before Chaff finds out that it's been sitting in the apartment above the bakery all this time, but now, I stare at it.

NEEANODLEARGODSPWCOEWOHPHENDWFULEKROHRREAEANAITADEMTTEHSPPPKTNEE

Sixty-four letters.

Haymitch's insistence on an eight by eight grid.

I open my sketchbook and draw the grid, then enter the characters in eight groups of eight, filling the square.

At first I don't see it, but once I do, I know Chaff is right - it's easy. It's _too_ easy. The words appear in the vertical lines. There are no spaces or punctuation, but it's perfectly readable: "New head Peacekeeper on rampage. Don't know what to do. Friends hurt. Help, please."

It's nothing new. Nothing revolutionary, even. Nothing I don't know. I doubt there's anything Chaff didn't already suspect. But -

_Help, please._

What did it cost Haymitch Abernathy to write those words? For other people, it might not mean anything, but Haymitch has never asked for help in his life, as far as I know. He didn't ask for help in school, or when his house was falling apart, or when he needed new clothes because his old ones were falling apart and the whole school was laughing at him. He didn't ask for help in the arena, at least not that we saw - and I kind of believe that he didn't. He didn't ask for help when his mother and brother died, though we offered it. And while it might technically have been asking for help when he asked me to send the cake, it felt more like he was asking for an ally.

But the message he risked everything to send was, "Help, please."

I only know of one thing that changed between the time he asked me to be his ally and the time he actually sent a message: I was nearly beaten to death.

And Haymitch swallowed his pride and sent out a plea for help.

I put the strip of paper and my decoded grid in my pocket and go downstairs. I make a show of checking the bread in the oven. I drop both bits of paper on the coals, and watch as they turn to ash.

"I think I'm going to go out and check on Haymitch," I say.

Mom nods. I see that she's already got a box of the new raisins, which means she's been in the shed. "I think that's a good idea. Why don't you invite him over for dinner?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that."

I go outside. There's a light snow falling from the dark gray sky. Everything is dusted in white, and the sounds of the world are strangely muffled as I make my way out to Victor's Village. Days are short now, and I can feel night starting to creep up on me.

There's a light on at Haymitch's, above the door. Inside, I can see the flickering shadows of the television screen. As I go up the porch steps, I can see it clearly - Haymitch is watching Caesar Flickerman's winter special. I realize that this is where the first seeds are planted to get people ready for the Victory Tour, which will start next month.

I knock on the door.

There's no answer.

I open it. "Haymitch?"

He is sitting on the couch, and he leans his head back. I don't even need to wait for him to talk to know he's drunk again. "C'min," he says. "Have a seat. There's a big show coming up. Our grayed vigdor. Swinging through the districts. See whose kids he killed."

On television, Caesar is walking people through a fancy train, which will presumably be Haymitch's transportation.

"And here, you see, there's a banquet car - fine food and drink every night. Fresh juices from District Eleven, fine sweet drinks from here in the Capitol, and the finest of all steaks from District Ten…"

Haymitch raises his bottle. "He's telling them no booze. Train's going to be dry as a bone."

"Maybe not a bad idea," I say.

"…and of course," Caesar says, "we'll finally get to learn what Haymitch's talent is! I had the pleasure of speaking to him, and with a mind like that, it could be anything!"

"What _is_ your talent?" I ask him.

"It's on my desk. Have a look."

I probably will later, but this isn't the time for it. "Mom wants you to come to dinner."

"Not hungry."

I sigh. "Come on, Haymitch. We just got in some great fresh vegetables… in a shipment from District Eleven. Gotta share them or it's bad luck."

Haymitch raises an eyebrow at me. Even under the fog of drunkenness, he picks it up faster than most people. "Fresh vegetables, huh? In December. Your mom wants to make sure I'm not starving to death up here?"

"More or less. Also, I think she wants help unpacking everything. It was a big shipment."

"Mm. I guess I owe you, then. Lemme… clean up…"

He sways to his feet, and I think he's going down again, but he manages to catch his balance, and walk with odd dignity to the stairs. He pulls himself up, leaning heavily on the railing.

I hear him moving things around. I'll go up and fetch him if it sounds like he's passed out again, but it seems the better part of valor to let him be. I go into his office and look on his desk.

There's a journal from Herk Donner's shop lying open, surrounded by scraps of paper, empty bottles, and pencils worn down to the nub. The journal itself is pristine, though, only written on in a neat hand with a fountain pen.

It's poetry. Haymitch has been writing madly, and as I flip through, I can see at least twenty different forms he's used, from a long chant to a simple haiku. I don't know if it's any good - Haymitch reads a lot of poetry, but I just read the stuff they assign - but I do know, from the acrostic on the first page forward, that it's going to get him into trouble.

_In summer's height, the stench rose from lightning -_

Wound through with acid metal - eating through flesh,  
incinerating bone.  
Love ends in desecration and  
life melts down into the filth.

No touch, no caress, slips so fully  
over my skin as the unspeakable  
thin film that sinks into my flesh, the

final truth of the grave, the ultimate intimacy.  
Of all she was, only this  
remains to me, and even this will wash away.  
Grief is a word without meaning, a word of surrender.  
I do not grieve. I will  
visit her blood on those who shed it,  
even to the end of the world, and they will remember her.

I flip through the pages, panic bells going off in my head. He can't show this to them when they go on the Victory Tour. Victors are supposed to play an instrument, or dance. They aren't supposed to write things that get them thrown in prison… or make them disappear. He's written about his mother and his brother, several poems, including one called "Wolf Soup," which I don't entirely understand, but it's the culmination of the cycle about them. He's written about the arena in very explicit terms, about what it feels like to drive a knife into the neck of a boy he doesn't know. There's a whole series of poems about his nightmares. The last poem, which is written lengthwise over two pages, is called "Twenty-Five Lashes." Every lash elicits a promise of some kind of vengeance. The lines are written so they interlink at various letters. I'm not completely sure - I haven't had a very good view - but I think they're done to look exactly like the scars on my back.

"Told you I was working on something," he says at the door.

I close the journal and look up. Haymitch has put on clean clothes and a winter coat, and he seems to have at least washed his face. "That you are," I say. "Let's go."

I get him out the front door and into the cold air and snow, which seems to wake him up a little bit. When we're far enough from the green that I'm pretty sure they're not bugging it, I say, "They're not going to show that."

"So what? They'll just say I'm too dumb to have a talent."

"Haymitch, they'll arrest you for treason."

"No, they won't. If they arrest me, they'll have to say _why_, and that would mean telling people."

"They'll just make you disappear."

"I can think of worse things than disappearing. Maybe they'd let people alone back here if I disappeared." He shrugs and changes the topic before I can address this. "What came in the delivery?"

"Chaff."

He stops. "What?"

"And he says your code was too easy. Come on."

There is no further discussion of poetry or anything else. Haymitch takes the lead. I have to force him to slow down. We make a perfunctory stop inside, where I get Mom to play along with the fiction that she just wanted a little extra labor unloading, then I take Haymitch back to the shed.

Chaff is sitting on top of the crate he came in, reading the inventory list from the shipment. He puts it down when we come in, and gets down from the crate.

"Hey, Chaff," Haymitch says.

Chaff nods, then looks at me. "This boy your real friend?"

"Yes."

"Then he won't have anything to say about it while I deliver Seeder's message." He comes over to Haymitch and puts his arms around him. "You're doing all right," he says. "You hush now, and we'll help you out."

Haymitch takes a few deep breaths, and I can almost see him relaxing. He pulls away and swipes at his eyes. "Thank Seeder for that, okay?"

"Okay. If it were up to me, I'd punch you flat out. One single person intercepting a code that simple, and everything would have gone up in smoke."

Haymitch sighs and leans against the wall. "Well, anything hard to crack, and we'd both have to know it going in. I took a chance that if it was written on the underside of something you had to eat to get to, they wouldn't find it."

"Unless they intercepted my mail and decided it looked tasty." He grins at me. "Which, by the way, it _was_. Seeder and I enjoyed it quite a lot. I may hire you to send some real presents around."

"Thanks," I mutter. I feel acutely like an intruder. "Should I, um…?" I indicate the door.

"Well, that depends," Chaff says. "You in or out of this business?"

"He's out," Haymitch says. "I'm finding some other way."

"I didn't ask _you_." Chaff looks at me. "That business of yours could be real useful if we can get workable codes going. I know you did this for your friend - "

"I'm in," I say. I hope it sounds more courageous than I feel. "And I'm not doing it for Haymitch. I'm doing it because two kids disappear out of my school every year. This year, we had a victor, and we still lost three - and one of them was another one of my friends."

I don't know if this is true or not. I always tried not to think about the tributes as I walked past their pictures in the entrance hall at school. I haven't exactly been thinking of them now. But they're there. They're always there, a nagging sense of loss that we all feel and all tune out because there's nothing we can do about it.

"You know what it means, though," he says. "You play nice with these people. You -"

"He knows," Haymitch says. "Half the town's treating him like dirt because he's acting like he's too scared of them to be part of their crap."

This gets Chaff's full attention. "Part of _what_ crap?"

Haymitch and I take turns filling him in on what's been going on in town since Haymitch's return from the Games. I tell him what the others are doing - harassing the Peacekeepers, mostly - and Haymitch tells him about Beckett.

Chaff grows grimmer as we speak, and he finally says, "I don't think you can make this stop until it's run its course."

"We don't want it to stop," I say. "We want to get rid of Beckett."

"An understandable goal, but right now, you're just provoking her, and making her pay more attention than Peacekeepers usually do." He sighs. "I got a new head Peacekeeper after I got back, too. Snow didn't trust me after I refused to let them give me a hand."

"A fake hand?"

"You'd be surprised what they can do in the Capitol," Chaff says. "I maybe could have learned the piano with one of their fake hands. Or the violin. But then, they'd own it. They'd be inside my body."

"They could control it?"

"No, but…"

"Then you should have taken it. Strangle them with it."

Chaff raises his eyebrows and looks at Haymitch. "If they reap this one next year, you might have another victor."

Haymitch pales. "They wouldn't…"

"Oh, yeah, they would." He looks at me again. "You know that, right? You're not out of the reaping, and they'd love to watch Haymitch lose another friend in the arena." He turns back to Haymitch, which is just as well, since I'm not sure how to respond to this. "You understand what's going to happen next year, right? They're going to put you in charge of people you know, people you've been in school with."

"I know. But not Danny. Not if he keeps his head down like he's been doing."

"Another good reason to keep the act up." Chaff thinks for a long time, then says, "The point I was making was that these Peacekeepers - Snow knows they're the type to crack down and get attention. Anything to put attention on the Capitol instead of a shiny new local hero, unless the hero is loyal to Snow. They know Haymitch isn't, thanks to a whole lot of stunts in the arena that didn't make it back here. Seeder was loyal at first, so they let her be. Even let her get married and made a big fuss over it. Three months later, at the Games, she lost her head when her tributes died, starting screaming for the end of the Games. Her husband had an 'accident' in the fields before the sun set that day. He was my big brother. I got reaped the next year." He shrugs. "Point is, they brought in the new head Peacekeeper for me because I got mouthy in the Capitol, same as Haymitch did. He made everyone's lives hell for a while, but then Snow moved him on to the next place he needed to intimidate. They pass. We go on."

"So your plan is to do nothing?" Haymitch asks. "Nothing at all? Just let it pass?"

"The plan is to not be _seen_ doing anything. We're working up a network. Beetee from Three. Me and Seeder. A handful of transportation techs from Six… that's a real loss, that they don't have any victors, but Snow knows what a valuable place they're in, and I don't know if he'll ever let them have victors we could work with."

"He doesn't trust the victors?" I ask stupidly.

"Trained and experienced killers who have every reason to hate him?" Chaff snorts. "He trusts us less than he trusts his advisors in the Capitol, and believe me, that's saying something."

"So what good would it do to have victors from Six? He still wouldn't trust them."

"Even Snow can't control everything we say when we're face to face. That's why I'm here now. There are places in the Capitol we can talk. Allies there."

"Allies in the Capitol?" Haymitch repeats. "I… Gia's letter, there were mockingjays…"

"Gia's new, and they're probably keeping too close an eye on her right now to make much use of her, but yeah. She's with us. And there's a boy who's wormed his way in to spy on the Gamemakers. He's no older than you two, but he's got all sorts of grand ideas in his head."

"What about Caesar Flickerman?" Haymitch asks, to my surprise. "Caesar was… well, he was nice to me in the Capitol."

"I don't know anything about where Caesar stands, other than with the tributes as much as he can. He's never said anything that makes me think he'd rebel, though. Too bad. Someone in a place like that could do a hell of a lot."

"Are you sure? I mean - being on the tribute's side…"

Chaff sighs. "There are good people who haven't quite come around to the idea that the system needs to be knocked down." He sits down. "We got Woof - he's a District Eight victor from maybe thirty years ago. The man's got plenty of built-up anger, but Eight's not in a strategic position. Even the Capitol wouldn't care that much if it lost some cloth for a while. District Nine's about two inches from rebellion, but their victors are loyal, so we don't have a way to talk to their rebels. Don't know that story, but if I were living in _their_ Victors' Village, I'd be watching for a knife in my back."

"I guess there's no trusting the career districts," Haymitch says.

"I imagine they've got their malcontents same as we do. And there are a few victors from Four I'm wondering about… they've always been the redheaded stepchild of the career districts. Almost as bad as Three in the inner districts altogether, except that Four didn't bring Capitol tech to a grinding halt during the Dark Days. I do wonder about them. And Ten's just an inland version of Four. You'll see when you get there. Five has a couple of victors, and they're angry enough, but with the power sources up there, the Capitol keeps them under real lock and key."

"Well, you have a victor in Twelve now," I say.

"What the hell good is Twelve, if Eight's useless?" Haymitch asks. "At least Eight's the only one that produces most of the cloth and uniforms. Five does more energy than we do. They could live without coal for a long time."

"Yeah, but see… Twelve's got a resource Snow's actually afraid of - a damnably smart victor who swore to kill him."

No one says anything for a little while. It all seems much bigger than it did this morning.

Finally, Haymitch says, "All that's well and good in the long run, but do you know what that woman's doing to the boys she gets in trouble? She's got that Cray guy doing it to the girls now, too. And the whippings… Danny, show him your back."

"No need. I've seen whip scars. Got a good handful of them myself, from before I was reaped. I still had some fresh ones when I got to the Capitol. They have some great medicine for the cuts there, but my stylist was furious about having to hide the scars. He'd wanted to send me down in just a pair of work pants, but he couldn't." Chaff shakes his head. "Is this the first time you've had a crop of dirty-minded Peacekeepers out here?"

"First I've heard," I say. "Well, there was one that had an affair with a girl, but nothing like _this_."

"An affair." Chaff snorts. "Sure it was."

I feel my cheeks get hot. For all my dislike of the Peacekeepers, it had never occurred to me for a second that the story of Mir's parents was anything but a love story, albeit a seedy one. That would explain a lot about the letter she got.

"It's just not unusual," Chaff says. "Good for District Twelve, wanting to fight back - most places don't even bother - but I doubt it'll do any good. She'd have to be fiddling on your victor for it to make a difference to the Capitol."

"She tried," Haymitch says, and shudders. "Gia told her she better lay off. That's when she started in on everyone else. If I thought she'd stop if I…" He looks away.

"She wouldn't. She's got a taste for it now, and I doubt she'd take it as an offer."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, much as I'm sure you're thinking it, that it's not her not being able to resist your pretty… face. She's out for power, and power over a victor is what got her revved up. If you offer, then there's no power." He considers this. "That's also why it would get her in trouble. Snow doesn't want anyone other than him having power over the victors. Otherwise, his power isn't absolute."

"Snow wants to… I'm supposed to…"

Chaff laughs at him. "No. Thank the skies for small favors, Snow doesn't indulge himself. It's a long running game, figuring out where his son came from. No one's seen him that close to anyone in his whole miserable life. There's not even a rumor about it. The man probably gives serious thought as to whether or not his left hand is worthy of touching his esteemed self at all, and his right hand's just a mercy date."

"Then how would he… What about the power?"

"He's got his ways. It's different with every victor." He looks at Haymitch appraisingly. "You keep up with the smelly drunk act, and maybe put on a few pounds, and hopefully, he'll settle for just making fun of you. I think that would suit his purpose better - defanging you, rather than turning you into an idol."

"Great," Haymitch says.

"You can't ask him to do that," I say. "No one deserves the way they've been treating him."

"And your friend Maysilee _deserved_ to be attacked by mutt birds? You deserved a whipping? My brother deserved to die in the fields? There's no deserving about it. But we're going to put an end to it, eventually. We just need to get a coalition together. We need to be able to fight together instead of being taken down one by one. The victors are in the best place to do it, because we can see each other and talk every year, then get back to our districts. Beetee's trying to work out some kind of code that we can activate electronically and -"

Haymitch laughs. "Electronically? Chaff, half the time, we don't even have electricity."

"In Victors' Village?"

"I haven't had an outage yet, but I'm willing to guess so."

"You have a better idea?"

I step in. "He has a code already."

"No grids."

"No grid. Here, give me that." I take the inventory slip and use Haymitch's school shorthand to write, "Can you break this?"

Chaff stares at it for a long time, then hands it to Haymitch. "This make sense to you?"

"Yeah. He's asking if you're breaking it. But this is just shorthand. It only makes sense to us, because we made it make sense. Sometimes it's words and… well, 'can' is just a squiggle and -"

"That's called a _code_," Chaff says. "And the less logical sense it makes, the harder it is to break. You teach me this. I'll get back and teach it to Seeder. And when you swing through Three, you find a way to get a face-to-face with Beetee and get it to him without anyone noticing. You smart enough to do that?"

"But what about Beckett?"

"If you can get these kids to stop provoking her, she'll get moved on anyway."

"I can't. And I wouldn't. It's about Maysilee as much as anything. They want to fight."

"Then they're going to keep right on taking the consequences of fighting."

"I tried to teach them how to not get caught -"

"Which would be a good strategy in an arena. Or in a real war, where they had somewhere to retreat. But do you really think this woman cares whether or not she whips the right kid?"

"I can't let her keep hurting my friends."

"Haymitch, you know why you won?"

"Lucky ricochet on the force field."

"You won because you think like a Gamemaker. The good part of that is that you can think your way around their traps. That'll be more useful than you imagine in years to come. The bad part is that you think you can control what other people do, if you're clever enough about it. You can't. Your friends are going to do what they have to do. It's not your choice or your call. It's also not your _fault_."

"If I hadn't spouted off in the arena - "

"Then they'd have waited a few months, maybe, before sending someone. And their other friend would still be dead, and they'd still be angry. Wouldn't you?" He looks at me.

I'm not sure - a lot of people became enraged when they started killing Haymitch's family - but I nod enthusiastically anyway. "Yeah. You know we would."

Haymitch looks at Chaff. "You better find someone other than Danny to back you up. Everyone knows you can't believe but one word out of ten that comes out of his mouth."

"Well, it sounds like he'll be a good ally, then," Chaff says. "Liars are useful in any war."

I don't know why, but somehow, this is funny. We all laugh, and suddenly, we're not two scared kids looking for an older advisor to help. We're three people all in on this mess, and we can see that there's a certain absurdity to the whole thing.

Chaff goes to the crate and starts digging around. "Now, if we're going to make this work, you have to not be on the best terms with this family, Haymitch. You know that."

He looks at me awkwardly. "I know. But they've been good to me. I don't want them to think I'm ungrateful. Danny, you'll make sure your parents know I'm not… ungrateful?"

"I'll make sure," I say.

"Good." Chaff fishes out a jar of orange-colored fruit. "Now, I think the best thing is for Haymitch to wander off now. Maybe he's sick of you lecturing him about his drinking. Would that work?"

"I'm the first person he got drunk with."

"Even better. You've gotten in trouble for it."

"That works."

"Hey!" Haymitch puts in.

"No, it's good," I say. "Everyone knows my mom was mad at you about that. I can get Ruth to start a rumor that she broke up with me because I was drinking with you again. And have you got a bottle?" He reaches into his coat and produces one. I grab at it, but he pulls it away. I make a more serious grab, and push him before he can get it back. "You brought this out here and were trying to get me drinking again, even though I've already got in trouble for it. Half the drama club can back up the idea that I'm not sober all the time."

"He's good," Chaff says. "Anyway, you storm off home, he goes inside for supper, and sometime after dark, you slip out of Victors' Village and come back here to teach me that code. The train will be loaded up at dawn, and I have a tech waiting to pack me in with a coal shipment, so it'll have to be quick."

Haymitch looks mutinous, but goes along with it. I make a huge amount of noise, and I think I actually make him angry when I smash his bottle of white liquor on our back fence. He goes away. I go back into the shed and start packing things randomly into a burlap sack, so it looks like we've been doing the shipment the whole time.

"You got a spine," Chaff tells me. "And this isn't going to be easy."

"I know."

He holds out the jar of fruit. "These are peaches," he says. Picked from Seeder's tree. A thank you for that fine cake you sent… and that's all. No codes. Just peaches. And they're for your family to enjoy, not to go into baked goods for other people."

I take it. "Thanks."

He smiles. "If you like them, peach cobbler is damned fine baked good, and there are farmers in Eleven that could use the order."

I smile. "I'll talk to Dad about it. We'll see."

Chaff nods.

I go inside and unload the baking supplies in the kitchen, passing the peaches off as a kind of advertisement. We have them after supper. We'll be buying more, if there's money.

I don't go to bed right away, because my bedroom's in the front of the house. I wander around the bakery, setting up for tomorrow's work. Sometime just past midnight, I see a shadow pass under the back window, then there's a tiny spark in the window of the shed. This is covered up quickly, and the world is dark again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**  
I don't know when Chaff leaves. I'm awake in the morning, as usual, though maybe not as alert as I normally would be. I know the train is loading up, because the coal trucks are rumbling through town. I never see Chaff leave, but when I take a chance on going out to the shed for a fresh sack of flour - I guess we'll have to pretend for a while, at least, that this is where we normally keep it - he's gone, and Haymitch is curled up asleep in the corner, wrapped in the coat Chaff was wearing. I hope Chaff has something warm for the train.

I bend down and shake Haymitch's shoulder.

He comes up swinging a knife. I'm glad I move quickly, though he still manages to cut the side of my wrist.

He rubs his eyes. "Danny… sorry."

"It's okay. I've got two of them." I take some of the packing material and wrap it around my wrist. "You feeling better?"

He nods. "Yeah. I still think I shouldn't have gotten you into this."

"Too late," I say, and don't give him any room to argue. "I'll have Mom come out around noon and throw you out and yell at you. She won't mean it."

"I can go now…"

"Nah. May as well make it a show. And you should get some sleep."

"Okay." He shifts Chaff's coat around and pulls out a bottle of something light colored and vaguely pink. "Local rotgut from Eleven," he says. "Want to actually have a drink with me?"

I nod and take the bottle. Tip it up. The taste of the peaches from last night pours into my mouth, but a hundred times sweeter, and with a serious kick behind it. I choke on it and my eyes water. We pass it back and forth a few times.

Haymitch finally takes it back and takes a swig, then corks it. "I'll sleep then," he says.

"Stuff's going to knock _me_ out," I mutter.

"Better go inside then. Waking up in your shed together isn't the rumor we're going for."

We look at each other and crack up. Everything seems suddenly quite funny. He lies down, and I toss Chaff's coat over him. I barely remember to grab the sack of flour.

Mom takes one whiff of my breath when I get back inside and sends me upstairs to brush my teeth. She doesn't storm out to the shed. She probably gets the concept - Mom's pretty quick with this sort of thing - though I have a feeling that when she does go out, yelling at Haymitch won't be an act. She'd probably give Chaff the sharp side of her tongue if he were still here.

By the time I'm ready for school, the slight buzz I got from the brandy has mostly worn off, and the only lingering sensation is a mild queasiness, which she won't do anything for.

I head out, wrapped in my heaviest coat and breathing through a woolen scarf. The temperature is dropping rapidly, and some snow that had started to melt a little bit has hardened into slick patches of ice. I'm about halfway across the square when I hear raucous laughter.

There's a crowd gathered around the Peacekeepers' headquarters, all of them wrapped up in heavy scarves like mine. Five Peacekeepers are piled up on top of each other, squirming and trying to get their footing on a smooth pool of ice that's spread around their door. The ice is unnaturally smooth. Someone must have flooded out the cobblestone apron overnight.

I run over. Cray comes skidding to the edge and pulls himself up on a hard pile of mud. He's on the far side of the apron from the crowd, but they recognize that it won't take the others long to try just heading for the edge. They scatter.

This should be it, but a gunshot breaks the morning. I look up. Lucretia Beckett has her sidearm leveled at the crowd. Many have gone still in surprise. Someone has fallen, and is clutching a wounded knee. I see red blood on the white snow. Beckett raises the pistol higher.

Everyone scatters.

I run over to the bleeding boy who was left behind.

"Leave her alone!" Beckett orders.

"She's hurt."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know."

"Pull the scarf down."

I do. It's a girl I know only vaguely. Ginger McCullough. Her parents work the mines, and she came to drama club once. She fancies herself a singer, but she's not very good. "Just a kid," I say. "Let me get her to the apothecary. They can take care of her."

"You get to school," Beckett says coldly. "You're not on the emergency response team. We'll see to her."

I hear footsteps behind me and look up to find Mr. Keyton. "I've got it from here, Danny," he says, and looks at me more sympathetically than most people in town have for weeks. "You go on. I mean it. "

I nod.

"Tell Ruth. She can look up the right treatment at school and help after classes." He checks Ginger's leg. "Looks like the left knee, hit from the outside. I'll get the bullet. There's no rush for her. I don't think it's quite as bad as it looks. It may not have hit bone."

I nod and get up. I help him gather her. She's in shock, not screaming or talking, but awake, with wide eyes.

I look at Beckett. She's smirking.

As Mr. Keyton and I turn to go off in our separate directions, she calls, "Let everyone know - I have some new authority now."

There are a lot of people running up to the school from different directions when I get there. All the ones who left Ginger in the snow. All the ones with the big ideas.

This time, _I_ don't talk to _them_.

At lunch, I go looking for Ruth, both to pass on her father's message and to get her to play along with Haymitch's scheme. She's not in the cafeteria, or in the school greenhouse. The only other place I know she likes to be is the music room, so I head up there. I'm mostly thinking about Ginger and Haymitch and Chaff and Mr. Keyton. I'm thinking about people running away and scattering when a gun went off.

I am not thinking about who else in Ruth's life might like the music room.

I hear her voice above a piano key and I open the door. "Ruthie, I ran into your - "

I stop.

Glen Everdeen is sitting at the piano. Ruth is behind him, her arms over his, caressing his fingers as she directs them over the keyboard. Her lips are just leaving his ear as she looks up at me.

"Danny," she says. "I- um…"

Glen stands up. "I'll just go."

I find myself unable to say anything. Everything else seems to go out of my head. He goes out around me.

I finally find my voice. "You're… with him?"

"We've been on a few dates."

"You're in love with him?"

"We've been on a few dates," she repeats. "Just walks. Singing with his family last Sunday. Scandalous, right?"

"But - "

Ruth sighs and sits down on the piano bench. "We're broken up, Danny, and I've heard of you doing a few things _way_ beyond playing the piano with someone since that happened."

"I-"

"Do you really think I don't hear rumors? Cast party? Mir deciding you were her personal party favor?"

"I was drunk," I say. "It was a party. I knew I shouldn't have let her, and I told her so after, and I'm _sorry_."

"I'm _not_." She gets up and comes around the piano to me. "Danny, you didn't even notice. You barely noticed when I broke up with you."

"I thought… we always… we're going to fix it… aren't we? We talked about getting married."

"You haven't even talked to me since we broke up. Not really."

"I thought you wanted a little space."

"No, Danny. You _forgot_ about me." She takes my hand and leads me over to a pair of chairs under a hand-drawn mural of a country band playing on someone's porch. I sit under the woman playing a washboard. She sits beside a mangy-looking cat that's hiding in the grass. It looks like it's batting at the bow in her hair. "I wasn't lying when I said I'd go to my grave loving you, but… Danny, you don't even see me unless you need something."

"That's not true. Ruthie, I love you. Can we talk about this? If you want to talk, I can talk."

She shakes her head and bites her lip. "You weren't even coming here to talk in the first place. You were looking for me with a message. Weren't you? You started to say it before you saw Glen."

I blink hard. There is something. It's important. "Oh. Ginger McCullough," I say. "She was shot in the knee. Left, from the outside. Your dad says to look up the right treatment so you can help after classes."

She nods. "I know about the shooting. Thanks for the details. I'll get what I can during study period. Dad knows what he's doing with getting the bullet out in the first place. That'll take most of the school day."

"I should have said that right away. That's more important than -"

She sighs. "That's it, isn't it? Everything is always more important."

"Someone was bleeding."

"I'm not arguing, Danny. It _is_ more important. And there's always someone who needs you more than you think I do." She laughs, but I can see tears along the bottom edge of her eyes. "You live for people to need you. That's why you always end up with Mir, any time I give you even a little space. She needs you because you're the only one who puts up with her."

"No!"

"But even she's second place, isn't she? You have someone else who's an endless vortex of need, any time you need a fix." The tears flow over, and she wipes them away. "Do you think I don't know who you were really cheating on me with?"

"That's insane."

"I don't mean you're sleeping with him. I mean…" She shrugs. "You know what I mean, Danny."

"He needs a friend, okay?"

"Yeah? Well, so did I. And you weren't there. Kay wasn't there, either, but I understand that. She lost her sister. She needed me to be there for her, not vice versa. I lost one of my best friends… and then I felt like I'd lost the other one."

I shake my head, trying to make things fall into place. I tried not to crowd her. I tried to give her space and respect what she was saying, and… and I ignored her. I ignored what she was _actually_ saying. I close my eyes. "Tell me how to fix this."

"There's no fixing, Danny," she says. She puts her hand gently on my face, and I think of rain shadows on her skin, and her voice in the gray. "It's who you are. You need to be a hero. And I'm not going to be the hero's love interest, showing up on stage for the finale, and maybe a pick-me-up love scene at the top of act three."

I am entirely wrong-footed by this. I can't even sort out how I feel, let alone figure out how to tell her. "I didn't mean… I don't think of you that way… I'll fix it."

She takes both of my hands and raises them to her mouth. She kisses my fingers. "Oh, Danny, there's nothing to fix. There's nothing _wrong_ with you. You're a good man. One of the best I know. But we don't fit anymore. You know that. You do, Danny."

"I don't know anything like it. I don't even know what you're talking about."

She leans forward and kisses my forehead, running her hands through my hair. I can see in her eyes that she loves me. I feel it in her touch. I don't understand any of this.

"This really is out of the blue to you, isn't it?" she asks, and pushes my hair behind my ear. "Oh, Danny. I'm sorry. But that's why… I mean, it's that you didn't know."

"How am I supposed to know what you don't tell me?"

"You'd know it about anyone else." She kisses me on the mouth, slowly. With finality. "You'll always be my first love, Danny," she says. "And I'm so…" A sob comes out of her. "I'm so grateful for that."

She lets go of my hands and runs from the room.

I lean back against the wall and take quick, shallow breaths, trying to understand how all of this happened so fast. I only meant to give her a message, ask her a quick favor. I never meant for any of this to happen.

The door opens, and I look up to see Everdeen.

He takes a step back. "Um… sorry. I... I left my books. I -" He walks quickly to the piano. He barely makes a sound, even on the wooden floor. He reaches under the bench and grabs a pile of books, then goes back to the door. He stops. "I'm really sorry."

I find my voice. "Apparently, it's my fault."

"I'm still really sorry."

I nod. "Be a good friend," I say. "I guess she really needs a good friend."

"I guess I'm the last person who ought to ask this, but… do _you_ need anything?"

I manage a deep breath without shaking. I can't quite look at him. But I say, "Yeah. I need her to tell everyone that she broke up with me because I was drinking with Haymitch."

"What?"

"That's why I'm not allowed to spend much time with him. My parents are really angry."

"She's not going to spread something like that around. She's telling people that you're a great guy and -"

"Tell her to say what I just said. Please." I manage to lower my head and look at him.

He stands very still for a minute, then carefully raises his arm and touches the knotted string bracelet on his wrist.

I nod. "Just tell her."

"Okay. I -"

"If you say you're sorry again, I'll deck you. Don't think I can't."

It's not an idle threat. I'm not really angry at him. I'm angry at me. I missed something somehow. But it all comes down to that image of her hands over his on the piano keyboard. I'm going to hit something. Soon. It's probably better if Glen Everdeen is far out of reach when I do.

Somehow, I make it through lunch. I make it through mine safety, though I can't look at Ruth, and team up with Elmer Parton. I get through the rest of the afternoon. Mir asks if she can walk home with me, and I think of Ruth saying that she heard rumors. I turn my back on Mir before I lose my temper at her. It's not her fault, either. It's my fault.

I go to the shed. Haymitch is long gone. I fill up a flour sack with soft packing material, hang it up from a beam, and pound on it until my knuckles are raw from the burlap. When I finally go inside, I find that the liquor cabinet has not just been locked, but emptied.

My parents do not discuss this with me. They don't ask me about school, or why I've been doing violence to a flour sack. Mom just bandages my hands without comment and takes me off kneading duty until the cuts heal.

The only thing that's said is said as we go up to sleep. Dad stops me at the top of the stairs. "I went over to the apothecary to check on the girl. She'll be all right. She'll have a limp, but not bad. I noticed Ruth was crying, too."

I look up. "Yeah?"

He nods. "Sleep will help. It'll make it another day."

I can't stand anymore. I sit down on the top step. Dad sits beside me and puts his arm across my shoulders. We don't talk. After a long time, I find enough strength to get back to my feet and hobble down the hall to my room.

I sleep dreamlessly, and wake up in the dark to start another day's baking.

Haymitch shows up to buy bread. Mom throws him out.

The Peacekeepers show up. Cray is still bruised from his slide on the ice, and one of the others has a long scrape on her face. Beckett is undamaged. They buy their breakfast without incident.

Mir comes over to trade lard for bread. She looks at the bandages on my hand. "Hit something?" she asks.

I shrug.

"Can I kiss it and make it better?"

"That's the last thing in the world that I need."

She holds out her hand. I give her mine. She kisses the bandaged knuckles. It doesn't become better. I promise to meet her in the rehearsal room ninth period to help her work on her audition pieces. We don't end up getting much work done and I come out of it feeling worse than I did before.

I think about laughing with Haymitch over the peach brandy. I decide that it would help the cause if I gave a little concrete support to the rumor I'm spreading. I head out to Victor's Village.

Haymitch has already been drinking for a few hours, and he doesn't mind sharing. He got a case of the stuff from the Capitol on the train. We watch Caesar Flickerman interviewing Haymitch's fan club, and we drink. We watch a movie about a Capitol boy who gets superpowers when he's struck by lightning, and defeats a rebel plot. It's very stupid. We drink. We watch a sitcom about a boy who has a crush on his neighbor, and drink. We don't talk about anything, other than joking about the idiotic programming. I don't feel _better_, but it does all seem more distant.

The Peacekeepers gather me up at curfew and hustle me back into town, where I'm in a lot of trouble for not being at the bakery for the afternoon. Mom tells the Peacekeepers that I'm not allowed in Victor's Village. I decide to care about this tomorrow.

I go to bed expecting another dreamless night, another empty day.

Instead, just past midnight, a siren rises in the darkness. Beyond my window, I can see the flicker of fire light.

I get up - I have a splitting headache and I'm dizzy, but the flames sober me pretty quickly - and run to the window. The center of the Square is ablaze.

I run downstairs, willing myself not to throw up. Mom and Dad are just behind me. We go out onto the front porch.

Someone has lit the whipping post up like a candle, and the stocks and pillory are burning as well. The trees and shrubbery around the square are starting to catch, even after being soaked for days in the snow. Something is shimmering on top of the melted snow on the cobblestones.

Lamp oil.

The whole place has been drenched with it. The only place they could have gotten this much was at the mines themselves. I look around. In the shadows, I see kids with their faces wrapped in scarves. And some who are older than kids.

Someone shoves past me. The emergency crew is running in. I run in to help but Peacekeepers block the way.

"Authorized personnel only!" Cray shouts. "If you aren't trained with us, you don't belong here!"

As he shouts, a limb of the large tree near the tailors' shop goes up, and the sparks alight on the building, starting the roof going. It's not a big blaze, and the wind changes and blows the original tree limb in the ot her direction, but it's sizzling in the boiled water, and I can see smoke starting to rise. Mr. Breen runs out, carrying his daughter, Violet. Mrs. Breen is in her nightgown and slippers, swearing at the fire.

"My shop!" she yells. "Someone see to my shop!"

A few of the response team - including Mir, I notice - try to run over with buckets, but Beckett directs them back to the square. "Capitol property first!" she orders. "Incidental damage later."

"Let us help them!" Mom yells. "We can get that while you worry about the Capitol property."

"Restrain them!"

"Let us help!" Mom yells again.

It's taken up as a chant around the square. "Let us help, let us help…"

I make a run for the Breens', but I'm thrown backward by Cray, who's guarding the line. Trucks have come from the mines, with water tankers on them. Hoses unroll, and someone douses the whipping post.

"Buckets!" I call. "Get buckets. We can use the snow! The fire hasn't gone far."

A few people run to their shops and come out with pots and pans, but we're pushed back again.

From the corner of my eye, I see motion in the sky. People are crawling along in the trees, heading for the burning shop.

I run to the base of a tree and look up. Glen Everdeen looks down at me and makes a shushing motion. He pantomimes tossing a bucket of water.

I see him at the piano bench.

Shake it away.

I slip back through the crowd and find a large soup pot that someone has dropped. I tap Rooba Murphy's arm and signal her to get another one quietly. I pack it full of snow and go back to the tree. The whisper goes around, beneath the notice of the Peacekeepers.

I pass the bucket up to Glen. He crawls out on a tree limb and dumps the snow onto the Breens' roof. Someone else comes up behind him and dumps the next bucket.

By the time the Peacekeepers notice that we've gone quiet, the fire on the roof is out, and the boys in the trees have disappeared.

Maybe that would have been the end of it. I doubt that Beckett particularly cares whether or not the Breens' shop burns, and since no one saw the boys who put it out, she can pretend it was natural.

But someone cheers.

It starts in the back of the crowd, and moves forward in a vicious wave. It's not a triumphant cheer. It's a brutal war cry.

Beckett raises her gun skyward and fires one warning shot. The Peacekeepers form a line.

"Arrest anyone with a bucket or a pan or a pot or whatever they've been using," Beckett orders.

There's a clamor as people drop things onto the stones and try to run.

But pots and pans don't come cheap, and some people try to run away with them.

"Response team!" Beckett yells. "Riot protocol!"

The response team, mostly made up of school kids and younger adults, looks startled, but when Beckett unrolls her whip behind them, they form ranks and march forward. I catch Mir's glance. She's frightened, but as I watch, she straightens her shoulders and takes a billy club from her belt. So do the others.

I back away, kicking aside pots and pans, hoping people will find them later.

There's a scream as someone is grabbed, and then there's chaos. People are running everywhere. Someone grabs Violet Breen by the hair and drags her toward the square. Mir sees me in the crowd and throws me behind a tree. I crawl over to help Kay Donner, who's been thrown hard into the smoking pillory.

In the dark, someone whistles.

Someone else answers.

There is a thunder of footsteps, and I see them all, running up from the Seam, all together. Glen, his face uncovered now, is at the front. Behind him is Forrest Hickman. Clay Hawthorne, who used to come to Maysilee's group, is there as well.

They descend on the Peacekeepers.

Gunfire goes off wildly in the night, but they are moving targets in the dark, and no one goes down in the first volley. A girl rushes into the circle. One of the Peacekeepers has a direct shot and raises her weapon.

Forrest tackles her from the side and grabs her weapon.

There is a flat bang in the night.

The Peacekeeper falls, blood blossoming on the front of her white uniform.

Everything stops.

There is a long, pregnant pause.

Then Lucretia Beckett says, "Get a rope."

There is no gallows set up yet, but it only takes the remaining Peacekeepers - the ones not holding guns on the rest of us, anyway - seventeen minutes to hang Forrest Hickman from the sturdiest branch they can find.

I fade back into the crowd and find myself standing beside Ruth. Glen is on her other side.

I can't think of anything less important right now.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**  
The scaffold for the gallows goes up the next day. It's built by the people caught with pots and pans, in lieu of doing time in the stocks and pillories, since they're burned. Beckett has ordered replacements, which are supposed to come on today's train. Until she gets them set up, all punishments short of hanging will be whippings, with the offender lashed to the tree Forrest was hanged from.

There is no time for me to be wounded about Ruth, and as far as I know, there is no time for her to go to sing-alongs on the Seam. There is a constant stream of whipping victims in the apothecary over the next week. Mr. Keyton ends up putting up a tent in the back yard, with canvases donated from the mines. A bunch of us build rudimentary treatment tables. I come and go with buckets of snow to make snow packs. School is closed for "emergency conditions," probably because there are too many places there for us to meet and talk at length. We all see each other at the apothecary - me, Kay, Ruth, Glen, Haymitch, Merle - but there are Peacekeepers there at all times, and they won't hesitate to take any misbehavior out on the wounded. I think the only reason they allow us to treat them at all is that the spectacle of bloody backs all laid out in a row might make people think twice about whatever they have in mind.

There's no shortage for the gallows, either. In quick succession after Forrest, Beckett hangs a miner who was hoarding coal, an old woman selling game on the black market, and one of the Purdy boys, who is accused of - of all things - forcing himself on Beckett. Everyone agrees that it's more likely that he just refused one of her "apologies." His older sister, Hazelle, starts coming around to help the rebels.

I am no longer surprised when I'm shunned - everyone still thinks I'm a traitor - so I don't notice right away that I'm not the only one getting the cold shoulder, let alone what the pattern is. Most of my good friends, except for Haymitch, have always been from town, anyway, though that was never on purpose. It was just the way everyone's social circles moved.

It's not until one of the boys with a lashed up back yells at Merle Undersee that I understand. Merle has been taking a turn sitting with him, and is going on in his usual, positive way about how things will turn around, when suddenly, the boy - or maybe he's a young man - shouts, "You shut up! I don't want to hear your rich kid crap anymore!"

"Hey!" Kay Donner gets up and goes over. "There's no call for that."

A girl on another table says, "Don't see any of _you_ in here bleeding!"

This turns into a minor verbal skirmish - none of the injured are in any shape to argue for long - and my name and whipping are duly brought up. This gets a derisive laugh, since none of _them_ are too soft to take a beating without crawling away like a dog.

I leave the tent and go out to sit on the front steps of the apothecary. A work boot comes into view, and I look up to see Glen.

"Sorry about them," he says. "I'm guessing I'm not supposed to correct them about you."

"Correct what? I quit, didn't I?"

"Sure. Right." He sits down. "How are you?"

"Are we supposed to be friends now?"

"That's up to you. I've heard from a pretty reliable source that you're one of the good guys."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

I don't know if I can be friends with this particular boy, not when I can still close my eyes and see him there with Ruth in perfect detail. But next to the blood soaking up through the snow, I guess all that doesn't add up to much. "I don't understand," I say. "I mean - we were all working together last week, at the fire."

"Yeah, we were. And since then, she's whipped thirty-two people and hanged four. Not one of those people has blond hair. Lots of blondes building the gallows, though. And there's talk that it's an awful lot of blondes who got this thing started, not to mention that it was one of your shops they were saving when Forrest got hanged. They're not going to be doing that again any time soon."

"That doesn't make sense. We've been - I mean, everyone other than me has been -"

"They know." He sighs and sits down. "Dumbest thing I ever heard," he says. "Not that it doesn't happen a lot, of course. Same thing happened in the Dark Days. Everybody got all ginned up. Smashed shop windows. Burned down Murphy's pub. My great grandmother - well, some number of greats, anyway, maybe two or three - was a merchant, you know."

"I didn't know that."

"It happens. Not much, but more than anyone acts like it does. They all act surprised when we pop out some light-haired baby, like it's a changeling that doesn't belong anywhere. My baby sister, before she died untimely, had blond hair, and everyone looked at her funny. Dumb. Anyway, my grandfather told me that they burned out this old resort they used to have by the lake - I mean, where I hear there's a lake out in the woods - before the fence went up. Family had to come back to the Seam and start mining again, or they'd starve. Point is, it was all ginned up by the Capitol, or at least that's what Granddaddy thought. And watching this, I kind of think he was right."

"Why?"

"'Cause when we're at each other's throats, we're not looking at them."

I consider this. "The only problem with that theory is that we're not _doing_ anything. We're not at anyone's throat. No one's working out deals with Beckett. Ruth's working her fingers to the bone trying to fix them up. The rest of us are helping."

"The rest? Like your friend Mirrem?"

"Okay, so not everyone. Mir's… never mind about her. She's not in this."

"Sure she is. She's on that response team - with a lot of other merchant kids. Lots of kids on the Seam applied. It was good money."

"No one asked for that!"

"I _know_." He leans forward with his elbows on his knees. "It doesn't make sense if you _think_ about it, but they're bleeding, not thinking. And once that kind of thing gets started… all the old problems come back. Everything. The nice houses where you don't have to worry about the rain coming in. The money in the bank. Everything. Right back to you getting moved in here to make it easier for the Capitol to take over in the first place."

"Right, because something that happened three hundred years ago is our fault."

"Told you, it's not about thinking."

I look around, feeling like the Peacekeepers have left us alone too long, but they seem to still be back in the tent. "Is Beckett that smart?" I ask.

"No. But the people giving her orders from the Capitol know what they're doing, and she's smart enough to do what she's told."

"Can you tell them that it's not… it's not like that?"

He grins. "Sure. Right after I roll back the sea and patch up the atmosphere. And you'll pass it on to Kay Donner and the others that they shouldn't take offense about not getting thanked, right?"

"Right. Yeah, okay."

He gets up and starts to leave, then looks over his shoulder. "I wouldn't mind being your friend, you know. I wasn't kidding about how many nice things Ruth says about you. But I know… well. It's up to you."

He goes down the stairs and heads up the road, with that eerie, soundless way he has of walking.

Out of the million reasons I have to not be friends with Glen Everdeen, the only one I can think of at the moment is that I'm not supposed to bring attention on myself.

Haymitch comes out a few minutes later and walks back to the bakery with me. I half expect him to send another message, but I can't think what his friends among the Victors could do right now. Chaff said this would run its course.

We stop at the bottom of the bakery stairs. "You need anything?" I ask him.

He thinks about it, then shakes his head. "Nothing here."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I'm sure."

He disappears back to Victors' Village, and I don't see him for the next week and a half. The few times I try, the Peacekeepers don't let me in. From their nasty looks, I'm guessing Haymitch is passed out drunk.

I keep my eyes open in town. The merchant kids do as much of the mischief as the Seam kids do - and since there are fewer of them, it means that each kid does considerably _more_ - but the pattern continues. A merchant kid jams a door at the Justice Building and gets the first half hour in the new stocks; a Seam kid talks back to a Peacekeeper and gets a lash for it. A merchant kid gets caught vandalizing the gallows and ends up in the pillory for an hour; a Seam kid gets ten lashes for "poaching" a rabbit in the woods. Kay Donner denounces the government and tells Beckett that a fall is imminent, and gets four hours of labor strengthening the gallows, Glen takes a monumental whipping when he's caught with an arm full of winter herbs that he's bringing in from under the fence. (They spill when he's taken off, and I gather them up for Ruth. They're good for cuts. She ends up using them on him.)

Of course, Kay refuses to actually _do_ the work on the gallows, and makes an impromptu speech about what's going on. This ends her up in the pillory for eight hours, which is nothing to sneeze at, but she's not bleeding. She is hurt, though. Merle Undersee tells me that it's because Beckett put weights in the collar of Kay's jacket, which pressed down on her shoulders the whole time. She couldn't really talk because she was working so hard to not be pressed down. "She says it was hard to breathe," he says. "She says it was like being drowned."

She doesn't make any more impromptu speeches. In fact, her father keeps her out of school, even after it re-opens a week and a half after the fire.

Beckett has re-ordered the school while it's been closed. Mine safety is no longer required for anyone in "advanced" classes, which effectively separates Seam from town again. Mr. Chalfant, who taught history, has been fired and sent to work in the mines. He's been replaced by a Capitol liaison who lectures, never asks us questions, and doesn't allow discussion. To Mir's fury, all clubs, including drama, have been suspended. The music room, which never cost them anything since they had no teacher, has been discontinued. The mural has been painted over with fresh steel-gray paint, and the instruments have been moved to the mayor's house.

It's now the "inspection room." Once a day, in what was our free period (or, in my case, what used to be drama period), we have to go in and submit to a body inspection by a "health officer," supposedly to prevent the spread of disease and vermin… but the health officer doesn't care if people are coughing or scratching. She is checking for bruises, cuts, scrapes, and other marks that might suggest we've been participating in rebellious activities. On a morning when I go in with a burn from the fire - the sort of thing I have on a regular basis - they make a huge fuss about verifying my "story" with my parents and witnesses who heard me swear.

There is no privacy for these sessions, and we're stripped to our underwear for them. Mir refuses to take her bra off (supposedly to check her breathing, more likely to check for bruises… and most likely because it was Cray doing the check that day). Since she was actually on the team responding to the previous night's mischief, she argues that she shouldn't need to prove anything. This argument doesn't hold weight, and she ends up with two hours in the stocks for insubordination. I sit with her, even though I have work to do at the bakery. She mutters about troublemakers wrecking her life, and about how she's going to cut off Cray's hands if he grabs her breast again. "Just because I work for them, it doesn't mean they own me."

There's no philosophical statement here, no grand battle for freedom. Just Mir, asserting her personal independence. She'll never be a rebel, but if they ever push her too hard, they're going to find out that underneath those pretty curls and behind those big blue eyes, she's as cold and hard as a steel knife. It's not bravery, and she'd never employ it for anyone else's sake. It's just stubborn, selfish willfulness. It's kind of amazing.

I help her out of the stocks when her time is up, and she leans against me, hobbling on her stiff legs, as we go across the square. I finally give up and carry her back to the butcher shop, to her bedroom in the apartment upstairs. I kiss her goodnight. I've done a lot of things with Mir, but this is the first thing that hasn't been because I'm drunk, or lonely, or mad at Ruth and trying to get her attention. It's not because I'm imagining her as someone else, or because she's playing a part. It's not because she's throwing herself at me.

It's just because I _want_ to kiss her.

It's a good kiss, and I leave before anything else can happen to ruin it.

The next day, a miner named Yarrow Crockett plants dynamite in the Peacekeepers' barracks. The detonator doesn't work right, but they hang him anyway. The mines are closed while the situation is "investigated" - which means the miners' families starve while Beckett hauls in each one, one at a time, for questioning about their possible involvement. These questions often seem to involve bleeding and pain.

It's been going on for three days when the giant screen for mandatory viewing is erected again in the square. The train that will come to get Haymitch for the Victory Tour is on its way. We get constant coverage of the excitement in the Capitol and the preparations in the other districts, cut in with aerial shots of the train headed for us.

Beckett orders the Square cleaned up, and the ice melted so that the frozen blood won't show. Any "demonstrations" given while the media is present, she promises, will be dealt with severely.

Haymitch comes into the bakery early in the morning on the day the train is due. It's the first time I've seen him since the day we walked back here from the apothecary together. He looks almost as bad as the whipping victims, but I suspect his condition is self-inflicted.

"What the hell's been going on?" he asks.

"Same thing that was going on before you drank yourself under. Another hanging, too."

He wipes at his face. "I'm sorry. I couldn't… There's nothing I can do. They won't let me do anything. They won't listen."

I don't answer this. I can't do anything about it, either, but at least I know about it. "Did you need something?"

"Yeah. Thought I'd get some cookies for Gia and the crew. And I might not be able to see Chaff much in Eleven, but I wanted to get a box of your cookies to give him. Actually, it's a good bunch of things. I wrote a list." He hands me a sheet of paper. It's covered in his shorthand. I can't read it fast enough to get much, but it looks like a pretty long report from someone who hasn't been keeping track of anything. I revise my opinion of his absence. He blinks at me helplessly - if it's a code, I don't catch it. "If you can, you know. I know… well, I'm not the best… customer… lately."

"I got it," I say. I take the paper and pretend to scan the baked goods. I take down one of the fancy sale boxes and get a sheet of lining paper for it. I look around to make sure no one is watching, and slip Haymitch's note under the paper. "What kind of cookies do you think he'd like?"

"You pick whatever's best. Oh, and couple of those cinnamon things you make, if you have any ready to go. I bet Seeder would like those. She sent me some fresh-made bread from Eleven."

"Yeah? I haven't seen Eleven's version."

"I got a picture," he says, and pulls out what looks like a fancy camera. He taps a button, and a picture of a crescent shaped roll of dark bread comes up. The top of it is covered with seeds. Haymitch leaves the picture up, and I realize that the seeds are making shapes - nothing big, no major report. Just three symbols. The first is a circle with three dots in it. We use that for any kind of talking. The second is "me." The third is a new one, and I have to think about it a little - a line of seeds with little rays coming out from it. A crown. Victor? That wouldn't make sense, since pretty much everyone Haymitch can reasonably contact is a victor. Then I think of a princess in a fairy tale… Gia. Tell me. Tell Gia.

I'm taking care of helping him tell Chaff, but it occurs to me that the other part is done. Pelagia Pepper is on her way here now, and was preceded by an order that stopped the whippings and hangings, at least for a few days.

I nod.

"You coming to see the train off?" he asks.

"You want me to?"

"Well, you know - if your parents let you get in breathing distance."

I smile. "I doubt even they figure you could get me drunk at a distance in ten minutes with cameras rolling."

"Good. Good, I'll see you there. Well, probably I won't I guess, but -"

"I'll see _you_, anyway," I say.

"Yeah. And…" He doesn't finish his thought. I pack up several random fresh treats into a bag, looking at a blank piece of packing paper to pretend I'm checking his list. I try to pick the good things.

"Do you want to stay for breakfast?" I ask. "Nothing to drink here, and, um - "

"You think I should be sober when they show up?"

"Yeah. Wouldn't want to accidentally say the wrong thing."

He considers it, then says, "You're probably right. Can I help?"

And that's how Haymitch Abernathy ends up spending the last hours before his victory tour helping my family and me knead and chop things in the kitchen. Gia arrives with the train, and gets the crew in to film him at it. She also films our menu, and mentions that we can ship out of district, and vouches for my cinnamon buns (this last may actually be a spontaneous reaction; the rest is clearly designed to keep our shipping hopping). It all goes out live. She's obviously been instructed not to let any locals speak when the cameras are rolling, because she doesn't talk to us or to any of the customers.

After she finishes her second cinnamon roll (and buys a dozen more for the train), she turns to the cameramen and says, "Well, it's time for our victor to get ready for the big trip! Why don't you get a few shots of the town? So many people have no idea how lovely it is up here in these mountains. They're very different from our mountains at home!"

One of them switches off a microphone, and the others start to take down the cameras. "Aren't we going to shoot his house? And last year, we talked to the family. Who are we supposed to talk to this year?"

Beside me, Haymitch goes very still. His fists are clenched, and I see a wild look in his eyes.

I step in front of him. "All of District Twelve is Haymitch's family now."

"Right," the cameraman snorts. "From what I hear, most of you aren't even talking to him, even when he _is_ sober."

Gia grinds her teeth. "That's enough, Gallus. One more outburst, and you're headed back to the Capitol… and not on the good train." She comes back to Haymitch and puts a hand on his arm. I can see him relax. "We'll go back to your place. Is it all right to film there?"

"I cleaned up like you told me on the phone," he says. "It's still a little smelly."

She smiles. "Yes, well. We still can't smell over the airwaves." She looks at me. "Why don't you come? There are usually interviews with the family, and I know you and your parents have been good to Haymitch."

He looks down. "I… We… I haven't been good in return. I got Danny in trouble. Drinking. It's weird that I'm even here this morning." He squirms and looks down at his shoes, and I think about him saying, _You're about the only friend I have left._

The smart thing would be to take this chance to disassociate myself from him. Him being here this morning was already a mistake. If I'm attached to Haymitch in the Capitol's eyes, they're more likely to check anything I send out. It could end up putting a stop to any messages (not that these have been very useful so far). If it doesn't, it could be a trip to the gallows… or the Games. There's always that.

Instead, I look at Mom. "Come on, Mom - with this many people keeping an eye on me, I'm probably not getting into any trouble."

Mom looks at me for a long time, then says, "All right. Miss Pepper… I'm trusting you to be in charge."

"Of course," she says. "We have a lot of work to do."

She instructs me to get something decent to wear - "preferably in blue; it will bring out your eyes" - and then we are loaded onto a truck full of camera equipment and hauled out to Victor's Village. A boy our age is propped up among the equipment. He smiles faintly and gives me a wave.

We get to Haymitch's house just past noon, and he's whisked away by a pair of timid looking women in Capitol clothes who have instructions to get him cleaned up. The house does have a nasty, sick smell to it, and Gia opens windows without comment. A third woman, whose name is actually Medusa, turns on me and starts putting my hair in order. "Oh, what is it about District Twelve?" she rhapsodizes. "There's the most magnificent _hair_ here! Darling, you must never lose this hair."

"I'll keep that in mind," I say.

"Do you know where Haymitch's talent is?" Gia asks as I'm finished up, but before the camera crews can get to me. "He said he's been working on it."

"Um…" I look around. "It's… I'm not sure…" I take her by the shoulder and lead her into Haymitch's study. The poetry journal is no longer out on the desk, but it's just in the top drawer. There are more pages now, and he's named it. The spine reads, _Revelations of Mayhem._ There's a second journal started, named _Eternal Absolution_. I have no idea what he's doing here. "Maybe it's not ready."

She smiles knowingly at the first journal. "Why don't I just take that for safe-keeping? It will be wanted later."

She slips it into her purse, and pulls out a battered looking old book. She opens this to the middle and sets it down on the desk, spreading out half-written-on sheets of paper around it. "My goodness, he's done well in the translation project. There hasn't been a good contemporary translation in years. Caesar said he was interested in books; I had no idea how much he'd accomplished."

"Yeah," I say. "Haymitch is a smart guy."

"People will hear his voice," she says quietly. "I promise."

I nod. "Wonder if he'll be able to talk about all that work?" I point at the fake notes, which aren't even in his handwriting.

"Oh, if he has a hard time with it, Caesar will get him talking. Caesar's read the _Odyssey_, too." She wrinkles her nose. "And I'm afraid that people somewhat less cerebral than Haymitch may not have terribly in-depth questions about it."

In other words, she's going to pretend he has a talent so boring and intellectual that it will never be asked about again. She's not going to let him put himself in front of a firing line.

And it will seem to the rest of the district that he's been up here doing nothing productive while they've been beaten and hanged.

Of course, I'm not sure they'd have taken poetry writing as a much more productive activity.

"We're ready in here," one of the cameramen calls, and I'm pushed in front of the cameras, to talk about how glad we all are to have a victor, and how smart Haymitch is, and how he's just spent the last six months with his nose in his beloved books, at least when he hasn't been in mourning. I embellish a little bit, having him at the play, and talking about the meaning of Agathe's last days. Partway through, I see him standing in the door, considerably prettied up from earlier. He rolls his eyes and encourages me to get on with it. I consider starting to seriously embellish - maybe play a little jabberjay drill - but I decide in the end that it wouldn't be helpful. I just have him helping out around town and sometimes getting me through school assignments, then talk about how eager he is to see all of the other districts. On a whim, I add that I want to know what kinds of bread they all make.

Now that Haymitch is suitably cleaned up, the cameras surround him like ravenous buzzards. I'm outside the circle with Gia and the boy from the truck. They give the same sort of annoying, empty interview that they give the victor every year. The boy makes a show of gagging himself, and flashes his hand at me. He's drawn a small bird just below his thumb. When his coat opens, I see that Haymitch's book is now in his pocket.

Haymitch gives them a tour of the house and gives a very dull but smart-sounding treatise on the book he's supposedly been translating, but refuses to go into the garden where Digger died. I don't blame him. I never did brick up the windows like I said I would - maybe I'll do that as a present while he's gone; I'm pretty sure Glen Everdeen will help me, if I guilt him hard enough - but he's kept all of the curtains drawn on that side of the house. The cameramen go out on their own and film the little Cornucopia fountain.

Haymitch wanders over. There's a lot of noise in the room, with all the equipment being dragged around. I barely hear him when he says, "They'll know you're with me."

"So I'll count on you not to do anything stupid."

"You, too." He glances out the window at the cameramen outside, and he shudders. "And stay off of Beckett's radar."

"I'm town. She hasn't been killing us."

"I'm pretty sure she'd make an exception if she thought it would bother me."

"Are you going to be okay on this trip?"

He turns his head slowly. It doesn't matter that he's put on a few pounds over the last six months - it looks like a skull. "Sure. I'll be in Capitol hands. How safe can you get?"

I end up going to the train with him after all. By then, most of the cameras have forgotten about me, and Gia's got her hands full getting Haymitch through the motions of his grand farewell. The Capitol rebel boy is working hard at whatever job he's technically supposed to be doing. I fade back into the crowd that's been corralled to appear. Several are people who I know have been punished recently. Ginger McCullough, still on crutches, is standing beside me. Hazelle Purdy has been shoved into line between a few other miners, and she's glaring mutinously at the platform. Ruth and Glen seem to be here voluntarily.

Haymitch reads a short, dull speech from a card, and is herded into the train. The doors close, and the platform is rolled back.

In a great billow of steam - almost certainly a cosmetic affectation, since I've never seen it come out of other trains - it begins to move.

The steam rolls over the crowd, and a whistle blows. It's time to get back to work.

The crowd disperses quickly now that the cameras are gone. I'm jostled pretty badly, and I hear a scream as someone kicks away Ginger's crutch. I catch her before she falls down and help her grope around in the mud for it, only to find it snapped in half.

As the sound of the train passes and the steam rolls away, I put my arm around her and help her limp back into town.

**THE END**


End file.
